Possessives

Prof. Alejandro Villa Franco

Let me start by telling you my personal opinion about adjectives and to clear something out. Un fortunately people think that possessives are difficult to learn just like English in general.

I have seen and heard people that enters to an English classroom thinking that English is difficult, nothing is difficult unless you want it like that, and i can tell you that is not. So, if English is not difficult possessives are even less difficult or i would say they are very easy to learn and memorize. If you think about it and you look at the chart you will see that they are pretty much the same and because you will see the examples too. Well, what i am trying to say is that people should stop creating those mental barriers because that is what is preventing you from learning or letting it be easier for you.

Another important fact is; if you are a quiet and shy person, is not going to help you at all. You need to be talkative and outgoing because you need to speak and express yourself in order to learn English. 

Basically possessives are easy to use. You just have to memorize the possessives, what i am trying to say is that you need to know which is the correct possessive for the personal pronoun you want to use. Possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns are very similar, there are only two that are different and the others are like i said similar but you just have to add an (s) at the end, but don not confuse that (s) with plurals or verb to be.

     PERSONAL              POSSESSIVE         POSSESSIVE           POSSESSIVE                OBJECT

     PRONOUNS             ADJECTIVES         PRONOUNS                  FORM                   PRONOUNS                           

I	MY	MINE	´S	ME
YOU	YOUR	YOURS	´S	YOU
HE	HIS	HIS	´S	HIM
SHE	HER	HERS	´S	HER
IT	ITS	X	´S	IT
WE	OUR	OURS	´S	US
YOU	YOUR	YOURS	´S	YOU
THEY	THEIR	THEIRS	´S	THEM

The possessive form is different from possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns. A possessive form is when you add an apostrofy and an (s), but here you also need to know and understand that is not a verb to be.

Now i am going to give examples and the grammer rules for possessives:

POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES

In Spanish would be: Este es mi carro.

In English would be: This is my car.

I used (my) because I am talking about me.

Grammar rule: when you use a possessive adjective you always need a noun after the Possessive.

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

In Spanish would be: Este es mio.

In English would be: this is mine.

I used (mine) because i am talking about me.

Grammar rule: when you use a possessive pronoun you never use a noun after the possessive.

POSSESSIVE FORM

Ejemplo: María le hornea galletas a Francisco.

(Substituye Francisco): María le hornea galletas a él.

In English would be: Mary bakes cookies for Frank.

In Spanish would be: Este es el carro de Pedro.

In English would be: This is peter´s car.

The common mistake that English students have using possessive form is: this is the car of peter. (Incorrect)

Grammar rule: you do not need to use the article (the or of) and you first write the person´s name and then the noun.

More grammar tips: if you use a name that ends with an (s) but is one syllable, for example (Charles) you do not need to write another (s) after the apostrophe and it would sound Charles’s, but if the name ends with an (s) and is two syllables, for example (carlos) you do not need to write another (s) after the apostrophe and it will sound Carlos’s.

I know i am talking about possessives but i really think that is very important to know how to use object pronouns because i have seen and heard students using personal pronouns instead of object pronouns.

(SUBSTITUTE FRANK) :   MARY BAKES COOKIES FOR HIM.

                                              

BIBLIOGRAPHY

All these knowledge or all this information i have written is according to my years of experience as a teacher. But of course all of these come from books and finding the best way to explain it and the best way to transmit it to the students. I have also learned that too much explanation confuses the students, so the simpler the better.