Possessive adjectives

Because the possessive adjectives are situated before the noun, they are also sometimes called possessive determiners (déterminants possessifs).

The possessive adjective depends from the owner and the owned object. First, the owner (vertical line of the table). Then, the owned object: is it feminine, masculine? Singular, plural?

The owner	Feminine, singular owned object	Masculine*, singular, owned object	Plural** owned object
je	ma	mon	mes
tu	ta	ton	tes
elle, il	sa	son	ses
nous	notre	notre	nos
vous	votre	votre	vos
elles, ils	leur	leur	leurs

* If a word is feminine and singular, but starts with a vowel or a mute -h, the possessive adjective used will be masculine.

« Une époque » (feminine, singular but starts with -e) : « mon époque » (and not ma époque).

It sounds more fluid, and in that case, there is a liaison between « mon » and « époque », that is to say that the final -n of « mon » is pronounced.

** If a word is plural, its genre is not taken into consideration, feminine or masculine have the same possessive adjectives.

« les époques » (feminine, plural) : « mes époques »

« les cafés » (masculine, plural) : « mes cafés »

Even with all these precisions, a sentence can have different meanings, and the possessive adjective alone do not always give enough information. In that case, the context can be helpful.

Alice a discuté avec sa sœur dans sa maison.

Here we do not know if the house belongs to Alice or to her sister.