This is the single hardest pronoun in Norwegian, and the one that most reliably marks a foreigner. English has exactly one way to say "his car" — his car — whether it is the subject's own car or another man's. Norwegian has two, and the choice carries real information: bilen sin means "his own car" (it belongs to the subject) while bilen hans means "his car" where his is someone else. The word that does this work is the reflexive possessive — sin / si / sitt / sine — and it follows two rules that have no English counterpart, so you have to install them from scratch. This page is the deep treatment; the overview comparison gives the quick version, and the reflexive pronouns page handles the object reflexive seg from which sin descends.
The core minimal pair
Hold these two sentences side by side. The only difference is the last word, and it changes who owns the car:
Han tok bilen sin.
He took his (own) car. ('sin' → the car belongs to the subject, 'han')
Han tok bilen hans.
He took his car — meaning ANOTHER man's car. ('hans' → the owner is someone else)
In bilen sin, the possessor is the subject of the clause: he took the car that is his. In bilen hans, the possessor is a different person not named here: he took some other man's car. English he took his car is silent on which — context has to rescue it — whereas Norwegian decides it with the choice of word. Replicate the same split with a woman:
Kari elsker mannen sin.
Kari loves her (own) husband. ('sin' → her own — the man she's married to)
Kari elsker mannen hans.
Kari loves his husband — i.e. some other man's husband. ('hans' → not Kari's)
Rule 1: sin agrees with the POSSESSED noun, not the owner
This is the rule that surprises everyone. In English, his / her / their agrees with the owner (he → his, she → her). In Norwegian, the reflexive possessive does the opposite: it agrees with the thing possessed — its gender and number — and tells you nothing about the owner's gender. One man, one woman, a group: all use sin / si / sitt / sine depending only on the noun that follows.
| Possessed noun | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| masculine (en-word) | sin | bilen sin (his/her/their car) |
| feminine (ei-word) | si | jakka si (his/her/their jacket) |
| neuter (et-word) | sitt | huset sitt (his/her/their house) |
| plural | sine | barna sine (his/her/their children) |
So when Kari takes a neuter noun, you get sitt — not because Kari is anything, but because eple (apple) is neuter:
Kari tok sitt eget eple.
Kari took her own apple. ('sitt' because 'eple' is neuter — the form has nothing to do with Kari being female)
Per glemte jakka si på bussen.
Per forgot his jacket on the bus. ('si' because 'jakke' is feminine — Per is male, but the form follows the jacket)
Hun savner barna sine.
She misses her children. ('sine' because 'barn' is plural)
Internalise this and a whole class of errors disappears: you stop asking "is the owner male or female?" and start asking "what is the gender and number of the noun?"
Rule 2: sin can never be part of the subject
The reflexive possessive points back to the subject — so by definition it cannot be the subject, or sit inside it. A noun phrase containing sin may be an object, or follow a preposition, but it can never be the thing the verb agrees with. This is an absolute, exceptionless ban.
❌ Sin bil er rød.
Impossible — 'sin' can't be in the subject; there's no earlier subject for it to point back to.
✅ Bilen hans er rød.
His car is red. (subject position must use 'hans')
The reason is structural: sin needs an antecedent that is the subject of its own clause, and a subject can't be its own antecedent. So whenever the possessed thing is itself the subject — "his car is red," "her sister called" — you must switch to hans / hennes / deres, even though the owner is the person you'd naturally call the "subject" of the situation.
Søsteren hans ringte i går.
His sister called yesterday. (the sister is the subject → 'hans', never '*sin søster ringte')
Huset deres ligger nær sjøen.
Their house is near the sea. (subject phrase → 'deres')
This is genuinely hard, and there is no shortcut around it: sin is for possessed nouns in object or oblique position whose owner is the subject; the instant the possessed noun becomes the subject, you flip to the hans/hennes/deres set.
Plural subjects: sitt vs deres
The same logic extends to plural subjects (de, "they"). If the owners are the subject and the thing is their own, use the reflexive — agreeing, as ever, with the possessed noun:
De solgte huset sitt og flyttet til byen.
They sold their (own) house and moved to the city. ('sitt' → their own, neuter noun)
De solgte huset deres.
They sold their house — i.e. someone else's house. ('deres' → not the sellers' own)
Same pair, same lesson as sin/hans: sitt means the subject's own; deres means belonging to others. With deres there is the extra wrinkle that it also means "your (plural)," but the subject-reflexive contrast works identically.
The puzzle of embedded clauses
Here is where even strong learners stumble, and where you should slow down. Sin refers to the subject of its own clause — the nearest subject, not necessarily the main one. So in a sentence with two clauses, sin attaches to whichever subject governs the clause it sits in.
Jon sa at Per hadde tatt bilen sin.
Jon said that Per had taken his (= Per's) own car. ('sin' points to the subject of its own clause, 'Per')
Jon sa at Per hadde tatt bilen hans.
Jon said that Per had taken his (= Jon's, or a third person's) car. ('hans' = NOT the local subject Per)
In the first sentence, sin lives in the at-clause, whose subject is Per — so the car is Per's own. To say Per took Jon's car instead, you switch to hans, which explicitly means "not the local subject." This is the cleanest demonstration that sin is locally bound: it always grabs the subject of the clause it physically belongs to.
A famous trap is the infinitive after a verb of perception or causation, where the "subject" of the action can be ambiguous — but the workhorse rule serves you well almost always: sin = the subject of the clause containing it.
Common Mistakes
Using hans/hennes for "his/her own." The default English mapping (his = hans) produces grammatical Norwegian that means the wrong thing — someone else's possession.
❌ Han børster tennene hans hver kveld.
Wrong meaning ('he brushes another man's teeth') — for his own, use 'sine': 'Han børster tennene sine hver kveld'.
✅ Han børster tennene sine hver kveld.
He brushes his (own) teeth every evening.
Putting sin in the subject. Sin can never be in or part of the subject phrase.
❌ Sin bror bor i Bergen.
Impossible — 'sin' can't be in the subject; use 'hans': 'Broren hans bor i Bergen'.
✅ Broren hans bor i Bergen.
His brother lives in Bergen.
Agreeing sin with the owner instead of the noun. Learners pick sin because the owner is male — but the form follows the possessed noun.
❌ Han mistet pengene sin.
Wrong agreement — 'penger' is plural, so it's 'sine': 'Han mistet pengene sine'.
✅ Han mistet pengene sine.
He lost his money. ('sine' agrees with plural 'penger')
Using sin for 1st or 2nd person. The reflexive possessive is 3rd person only; I/you/we use min/din/vår with no reflexive twist.
❌ Jeg tok jakken sin.
Incorrect — 1st person uses 'min': 'Jeg tok jakken min'.
✅ Jeg tok jakken min.
I took my jacket.
Mishandling the embedded clause. Forgetting that sin binds to the local subject, not the main one.
❌ Kari sa at Per hadde glemt vesken hennes (meaning Per's own bag).
Wrong if you mean Per's own bag — 'hennes' points away from Per; use 'si': 'Kari sa at Per hadde glemt vesken si'.
✅ Kari sa at Per hadde glemt vesken si.
Kari said that Per had forgotten his (own) bag.
Key Takeaways
- sin/si/sitt/sine = the possessor is the subject of the clause ("his/her/their own"); hans/hennes/deres = the possessor is someone else.
- The form agrees with the possessed noun (sin/si/sitt/sine), never with the owner — the opposite of English.
- sin can never be (part of) the subject. When the possessed thing is the subject, switch to hans/hennes/deres.
- It is 3rd person only; 1st/2nd person use plain min/din/vår/deres.
- In complex sentences, sin binds to the subject of its own clause — the nearest one.
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- Reflexive Pronouns: meg, deg, segA2 — Norwegian reflexives copy the object pronouns in the 1st/2nd person (meg, deg, oss, dere) but use a dedicated word — seg — in the entire 3rd person, so 'han vasker seg' (washes himself) and 'han vasker ham' (washes another man) are different sentences English can't keep apart without -self.
- Possessive Pronouns: min, din, hans, vårA2 — The full possessive paradigm — agreeing min/mitt/mine and frozen hans/hennes/deres — plus standalone use ('den er min') and the famous sin-vs-hans puzzle, where Norwegian distinguishes 'his own' from 'his (someone else's)' with a dedicated word English simply lacks.
- Possessive Determiners and Their PositionA2 — Norwegian possessives like min/mitt/mine agree with the possessed noun and sit most naturally AFTER it — 'bilen min', 'boka mi', 'huset mitt' — with the definite noun, the opposite of the English order learners reach for.
- sin vs hans/hennes: His Own vs HisB1 — Use sin/si/sitt/sine when the possessor is the subject of the same clause (his own), and hans/hennes/deres when the possessor is someone else — a distinction English 'his/her' never makes.