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Our goal for this lesson is to first learn and then gain confidence using "gli aggettivi possessivi", possessive adjectives. But to do all this you need to follow me and watch until the end!

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In Italian, singular possessive adjectives are: mio/mia, tuo/tua, suo/sua, nostro/nostra, vostro/vostra, loro. Here's the first little rule for you to apply in order to sound more like a native when speaking: remember that "gli aggettivi possessivi singolari", singular possessive adjectives are ALWAYS preceded by a definite article.

Now, let's see an actual example of a sentence that includes a definite article + the possessive adjective. Il mio cane è un pastore tedesco - my dog is a German shepherd.
In this case we have "il", singular masculine definite article followed by "mio", singular masculine because it ends in "o", a possessive adjective. It's singular because it refers to a dog which is one in this case, and masculine since "cane", is a masculine noun in Italian.

Moreover, in Italian, singular family names are never preceded by a definite article, but only by the possessive article itself. Just like this: sua mamma parla cinque lingue - his/her mum speaks five languages. So, as you can tell, we don't say "la sua mamma..." but just "sua mamma".

In this example, the possessive adjective "sua" refers to "mamma" of course that's why it has the -a ending and the, let's say "possessor" can be both a he or a she. And that's because the gender for the possessive adjective in Italian, unlike English, doesn’t reflect the gender of the possessor but rather the possession.

The possessive adjective "loro" is then the only one that doesn't follow the exception to the rule. In fact we definitely say: il loro sogno è di visitare tutti i Paesi del mondo - their dream is to visit each country in the world. So, we do not need to eliminate the definite article when using "loro", their!

If you are referring to more things together, then what you'll need to use are plural possessive adjectives: miei/mie, tuoi/tue, suoi/sue, nostri/nostre, vostri/vostre, loro.

In this case also, the plural possessive adjective is preceded by a plural definite article. Just like this: i vostri di italiano sono nuovi - your Italian books are new.
So, in this sentence we have the masculine plural definite article "i"-the, the masculine plural possessive adjective "vostri"-your that refers to books, which is a masculine plural noun in Italian.

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A good old fashioned love song is often full of possessive adjectives and that's probably because most of the singers are possessed "by love". One lovely Italian love song that you can use to practice listening for and identifying the possessive adjectives is "Se piovesse il tuo nome" by Elisa. To do all this I need to use the FluentU app of course. Let's look at the chorus of this song and we'll find out that she says "se...piovesse il tuo nome", if your name rained down. An effective way to use music as a language learning and practicing resource is to utilize both the written lyrics and the audio at the same time and you can do all that thanks to FluentU you can have fun listening to a great song while I am actually reading the lyrics of it and revising all the grammar you've just learnt!

We have a couple more plural possessive adjectives in Italian: proprio/propria/, propri/proprie. They can be used instead of the third person singular or plural possessive adjective "suo/sua" or "loro" only if it's the subject of the sentence that possesses.

Let me show you a real life example of this: ognuno porta il proprio zaino - everyone carries their own backpack. In this example the subject of the sentence is "ognuno", everyone plus, the possessive adjective "proprio" refers to "ognuno" so both the criteria are respected that's why I can use "proprio" instead of "suo", for example.

Let's meet our last friend of the day, the possessive adjective "altrui" which doesn't really have a perfect translation in English but it means something like "of others". We normally use it to indicate an unspecified owner but just people in general. Let's look at this phrase: non si può giudicare la vita altrui - you can't judge other people's life.

So we are basically speaking about people in general and not referring to anyone specific.
Now all you have to do is start your FluentU free trial period by clicking on the link in the description in order to see for yourself how FluentU can help you obtain Italian fluency.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Learn Italian Possessive Adjectives
10:11 Learn Italian with FluentU
10:56 More Plural Italian Possessive Adjectives
14:01 Free PDF Guide on Italian Possessive Adjectives

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