Swedish possessives — "my, your, his, our," and so on — hold one surprise for English speakers and one relief. The surprise: some of them change their ending to match the thing being owned (gender and number), the way Romance languages do. The relief: the rest are completely frozen and never change. This page gives you all the forms and shows how they work both in front of a noun (min bil, "my car") and standing on their own (Bilen är min, "The car is mine"). The deep sin vs. hans/hennes puzzle and the rules about the noun's own form get their own pages; here we focus on the forms themselves and the standalone use.
The agreeing group: changes with the thing owned
This is the half that needs attention. min, din, sin, vår (and the polite er) each have three forms, picked to match the possessed noun: one for en-words, one for ett-words, one for plurals. The pattern is identical across all of them — learn it once for min and the rest follow:
| Owner | en-word | ett-word | plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| my | min bil | mitt hus | mina barn |
| your (sg.) | din bil | ditt hus | dina barn |
| his/her own (refl.) | sin bil | sitt hus | sina barn |
| our | vår bil | vårt hus | våra barn |
| your (pl./formal) | er bil | ert hus | era barn |
The crucial point — and this is the deepest insight on the page — is what they agree with. They agree with the thing owned, not the owner. So mitt hus is "my house" with mitt (the ett-form) because hus is an ett-word; it has nothing to do with the gender of me.
Det här är min cykel, mitt tält och mina skidor.
This is my bike, my tent and my skis. cykel (en) → min, tält (ett) → mitt, skidor (plural) → mina — one owner, three forms, chosen by each noun.
Var har du ditt pass? Mitt ligger i väskan.
Where's your passport? Mine's in the bag. pass and the implied passport are ett-words → ditt, mitt.
Vår lägenhet är liten, men våra grannar är trevliga.
Our flat is small, but our neighbours are nice. lägenhet (en) → vår, grannar (plural) → våra.
The frozen group: never changes
The other half is easier than English in a way. hans, hennes, dess, deras never change form at all — one shape covers every gender and number of the possessed noun:
- hans — his
- hennes — her
- dess — its (referring to a thing/animal)
- deras — their
Hans bil, hans hus och hans barn — allt han äger.
His car, his house and his children — everything he owns. 'hans' is frozen: identical before an en-word, an ett-word and a plural.
Hennes idéer var bättre än deras.
Her ideas were better than theirs. 'hennes' and 'deras' never inflect.
Företaget och dess anställda flyttar till Malmö.
The company and its employees are moving to Malmö. 'dess' = 'its' for a non-human owner; invariable.
So the system has a clean split: an agreeing set (min, din, sin, vår, er) and a frozen set (hans, hennes, dess, deras). A useful contrast to feel the difference — "his books" vs. "my books":
Hans böcker står bredvid mina böcker.
His books stand next to my books. 'hans' stays put; 'mina' agrees with the plural 'böcker'.
Standalone use: "It's mine"
Swedish possessives do double duty. The very same words used before a noun also stand on their own as "mine, yours, his," with no extra form to learn — unlike English, which switches my → mine, your → yours. The agreeing ones still agree, now with the noun they stand in for:
Bilen är min.
The car is mine. 'min' stands alone, agreeing with the understood en-word 'bil'.
Är den här jackan din? — Nej, min är blå.
Is this jacket yours? — No, mine is blue. 'din' and 'min' both standalone; jacka is an en-word.
Det huset är vårt, inte deras.
That house is ours, not theirs. 'vårt' agrees with the ett-word 'hus'; 'deras' stays frozen.
Pengarna är mina, jag tjänade ihop dem.
The money is mine, I earned it. 'pengar' is plural, so the standalone form is 'mina'.
Because the standalone form is identical to the attributive one, you never have a separate "mine/ours/theirs" set to memorise — a genuine simplification over English.
A spelling reminder: no apostrophe, double t
Two orthography points worth nailing down now. First, Swedish possessives never take an apostrophe — there is no min's, no Annas'; ownership by name uses a plain -s (Annas bil, covered on The Genitive -s). Second, the neuter forms double the t: mitt, ditt, sitt, vårt, ert — not mit, dit. And keep the å in vår / vårt / våra.
Mitt rum är större än ditt.
My room is bigger than yours. Double-t in 'mitt' and 'ditt'; rum is an ett-word.
Common Mistakes
❌ Min hus är gult.
Incorrect — 'hus' is an ett-word, so the possessive must agree: 'mitt', not 'min'. English speakers forget to inflect because English 'my' never changes.
✅ Mitt hus är gult.
My house is yellow.
❌ min böcker
Incorrect — 'böcker' is plural, so the possessive is 'mina'.
✅ mina böcker
my books
❌ min bilen
Incorrect — after a possessive the noun stays bare (indefinite): 'min bil', never the definite 'bilen'. (Full rule on the determiners page.)
✅ min bil
my car
❌ Bilen är mina.
Incorrect — the standalone form must still agree: 'bil' is singular en, so it's 'min', not the plural 'mina'.
✅ Bilen är min.
The car is mine.
❌ Anna's bil / min's
Incorrect — Swedish never uses an apostrophe for possession. It's 'Annas bil', and standalone 'min' has no apostrophe either.
✅ Annas bil / Bilen är min.
Anna's car / The car is mine.
Key Takeaways
- Possessives split into an agreeing set — min/mitt/mina, din/ditt/dina, sin/sitt/sina, vår/vårt/våra, er/ert/era — and a frozen set — hans, hennes, dess, deras.
- The agreeing ones match the thing owned (gender and number), like Romance languages, not the owner: min bok but mitt hus.
- The same forms work attributively (min bil) and standalone (Bilen är min) — there is no separate "mine/yours" set as in English.
- Neuter forms double the t (mitt, ditt, sitt, vårt, ert), keep the å in vår, and Swedish never uses an apostrophe for possession.
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- Possessive DeterminersA1 — The words for 'my/your/his...' before a noun: min/mitt/mina, din/ditt/dina, vår/vårt/våra and sin/sitt/sina AGREE with the possessed noun's gender and number, while hans, hennes, dess, er and deras are INVARIABLE. The rule English habits keep breaking: a noun after any possessive goes BARE (min bil, never *min bilen) — no definite suffix, no front article.
- The Reflexive Possessive sin/sitt/sinaB1 — sin/sitt/sina means 'his/her/its/their own' and points back to the subject of the same clause: Han älskar sin fru = his OWN wife, while Han älskar hans fru = some other man's wife. It agrees with the thing owned (like min/mitt/mina), is strictly 3rd-person and subject-bound — and, the detail competitors skip, can NEVER itself be part of the subject.
- sin/sitt/sina vs hans/hennes/derasB1 — The decision procedure for Swedish's reflexive possessive. Use sin/sitt/sina ('one's own') when the owner is the third-person SUBJECT of the SAME clause; use hans/hennes/deras for everyone and everything else. 'Han tvättar sin bil' means he washes his OWN car; 'Han tvättar hans bil' means he washes some other man's car — a distinction English can't make in a single word. The hard part is embedded clauses, where 'sin' points to the nearest subject.
- The Genitive -sA1 — Swedish forms the possessive by adding a plain -s to the noun — Annas bil, pojkens cykel, barnens rum — with NO apostrophe (unlike English: never *Anna's). The -s attaches to any form (singular, plural, definite), the genitive replaces the article so the phrase is automatically definite, and a noun already ending in -s/-x/-z adds nothing extra (Lars bil).