Possessives: său/sa vs lui/ei | Romanian Grammar

For "my" and "your", Romanian has exactly one device — the agreeing possessive (meu, tău). For "his" and "her" it has two, and choosing between them is one of the genuine decision points of the language. You can use the agreeing possessive său/sa/săi/sale, which behaves like the others (it matches the possessed noun), or the invariable genitive pronouns lui ("his") and ei ("her"), which are simply placed after the noun. They are not interchangeable in feel: său/sa leaves the owner's sex unspecified, while lui/ei pin it down. This page is about which to choose and why; for the specific error of mis-agreeing său, see the his/her mistake page.

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The core difference: său/sa/săi/sale agree with the thing owned and tell you nothing about the owner — cartea sa is "his OR her book". Lui (his) and ei (her) are invariable, agree with nothing, and mark the owner's sex — cartea lui = a man's book, cartea ei = a woman's. When you need to make clear whose it is, reach for lui/ei.

Option one: său/sa/săi/sale — agrees with the possessed noun

Său is the third-person member of the regular possessive family. Like meu and tău, it agrees with the noun it sits on, across the usual four forms.

Possessed noun	Form	Example	Means
masc. sing.	său	câinele său	his/her dog
fem. sing.	sa	cartea sa	his/her book
masc. plur.	săi	copiii săi	his/her children
fem. plur.	sale	ideile sale	his/her ideas

Every cell is owner-ambiguous. Cartea sa is feminine because carte is feminine — not because the owner is a woman. The same form serves a male and a female owner.

Și-a recunoscut greșeala și și-a cerut scuze pentru reacția sa.

He/she admitted the mistake and apologized for his/her reaction. (sa — agrees with reacția, feminine)

Pictorul și-a expus lucrările sale cele mai recente.

The painter exhibited his most recent works. (sale — fem. pl., agreeing with lucrările)

Option two: lui / ei — invariable, marks the owner

The alternative is the genitive of the personal pronoun: lui ("of him / his") and ei ("of her / her"). These are frozen — they never inflect for the possessed noun — and they sit after the (definite) noun. Crucially, they encode the owner's sex, exactly the way English his/her does.

Owner	Word	Example	Means
male owner	lui	cartea lui	his book (a man's)
female owner	ei	cartea ei	her book (a woman's)

The same word covers any possessed noun, because lui/ei don't agree: cartea lui, câinele lui, cărțile lui, casele lui — the noun changes, lui never does. (This is the same lui used to mark masculine names in the genitive — cartea lui Ion — discussed under names and the genitive lui.)

Andrei a uitat geanta lui în tren.

Andrei left his bag on the train. (lui — owner is male)

Maria mi-a arătat fotografiile ei din vacanță.

Maria showed me her vacation photos. (ei — owner is female)

Părinții lui s-au mutat la munte.

His parents moved to the mountains.

The ambiguity trap — and why it pushes speakers to lui/ei

Here is the practical consequence. Because său/sa hides the owner's sex, a sentence with său can be genuinely ambiguous about who owns what — especially when there are two people in play.

Ana l-a întâlnit pe Mihai și i-a luat mașina sa.

Ana met Mihai and took his/her car. (sa — whose car? Ambiguous: Ana's or Mihai's)

Is it Ana's car or Mihai's? Sa refuses to say. Swapping to lui or ei resolves it instantly:

Ana l-a întâlnit pe Mihai și i-a luat mașina lui.

Ana met Mihai and took HIS car. (lui — Mihai's)

Ana l-a întâlnit pe Mihai și i-a luat mașina ei.

Ana met Mihai and took HER (own) car. (ei — Ana's)

This is exactly why spoken Romanian leans on lui/ei as the default for living people. They disambiguate, and they line up with the English instinct (mark the owner), which makes them feel natural. Său/sa survives, but with a narrower, more careful niche.

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For everyday talk about people, lui/ei is the safer, more common choice — it says whose. Său/sa is the elegant option for writing and for cases where the owner is obvious or irrelevant. When in doubt in conversation, use lui/ei.

When său/sa is the better choice: subject-orientation

Său/sa is not merely "the formal version" of lui/ei. In careful usage it carries a subject-oriented flavor — it tends to refer back to the subject of the clause, much like English "his own". When the owner is the subject, său/sa is often the more natural, even preferred, choice, and it can itself disambiguate in the opposite direction.

Scriitorul și-a lansat noul său roman la târgul de carte.

The writer launched his new novel at the book fair. (său — owner = the subject, the writer; 'his own')

Fiecare angajat își aduce propriul său laptop.

Each employee brings his own laptop. (său reinforced by propriul — strongly subject-oriented)

Contrast: Directorul a discutat cu Radu despre proiectul lui uses lui to point at Radu (not the director, the subject); proiectul său would more naturally point back to the director. This subject-orientation is subtle and not absolute in casual speech, but it is the reason său/sa hasn't disappeared — it does a job lui/ei can't, namely flagging "the subject's own".

Profesorul și-a apărat punctul său de vedere cu argumente solide.

The professor defended his (own) point of view with solid arguments. (său — subject-oriented, register: formal)

Register and the colloquial picture

Form	Marks owner's sex?	Agrees with?	Typical register
său / sa / săi / sale	no	possessed noun	formal/literary, subject-oriented
lui / ei	yes	nothing (invariable)	neutral, the spoken default for people

Both are fully standard. Său/sa is more frequent in journalism, literature, and formal prose; lui/ei dominate conversation. For inanimate "its" (a thing's parts or properties), său/sa is the normal choice — you wouldn't usually say lui of a building — though ei appears for grammatically feminine things in speech.

Orașul și împrejurimile sale merită vizitate.

The city and its surroundings are worth visiting. (sale — 'its', referring to the inanimate orașul)

Common Mistakes

❌ cartea său

Agreement error — carte is feminine, so the agreeing possessive is sa: cartea sa.

✅ cartea sa

his/her book

❌ Asta e mașina său. (pointing at a woman, meaning 'hers')

Misleading — său doesn't mark the owner; to say it's explicitly hers, use ei: mașina ei.

✅ Asta e mașina ei.

That's her car.

❌ cărțile ei ei / cartea luii (making lui/ei agree)

Over-inflection — lui and ei are invariable: cartea lui, cărțile ei.

✅ cărțile ei

her books

❌ Ana a luat mașina ei a lui Mihai.

Mixing both devices — pick one: mașina ei (Ana's) OR mașina lui (Mihai's). Don't stack ei + a lui.

✅ Ana a luat mașina lui Mihai.

Ana took Mihai's car. (name made explicit)

❌ sa carte e nouă

The possessive follows a definite noun; it doesn't precede a bare one: cartea sa e nouă.

✅ Cartea sa e nouă.

His/her book is new.

Key Takeaways

Two ways to say his/her: agreeing său/sa/săi/sale (matches the possessed noun) and invariable lui (his) / ei (her).
Său/sa is owner-ambiguous — cartea sa = "his OR her book"; lui/ei mark the owner's sex.
The ambiguity of său pushes spoken Romanian toward lui/ei for people, and they match the English instinct.
Său/sa keeps a real job: it is subject-oriented ("his/her own") and is standard in formal/literary writing and for inanimate "its".
Lui/ei never change; său/sa must agree with the thing owned.

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