Yesterday we talked about the Possessive A and now it’s time to follow up with a similar grammar entity – the personal pronoun.

In English these are fairly simple – my (mine), your(s), his, hers, ours and theirs.

Spanish likewise, mio(s)/mia(s), nuestro(s)/nuestra(s), etcetera.

Romanian is a little more complicated of course ;)

Let’s start off with the words for “my”, which vary by gender and number:

Masculine		Feminine
Sing	Plural	Sing	Plural
meu	mei	mea	mele

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Again, exactly like the Possessive A, the noun being modified determines which form of “my” you use.

Ex:

Fiul meu – My (masculine, singular) son.
Fiica mea – My (feminine, singular) daughter.
Fiii mei – My (plural, masculine) children.
Fiicele mele – My (plural feminine) daughters.

You’ll notice that the nouns here are taking the “objective” case declination, that is to say “The + word” form.

Literally saying fiul meu is the equivalent to “the son (of) mine”.

Now let’s do our and your (informal):

	Masculine		Feminine
	Sing	Plural	Sing	Plural
our	nostru	nostri	noastra	noastre
your (informal)	tau	tai	ta	tale

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See? It’s not so hard. It follows exactly along with the Possessive A and so therefore the following is possible:

You: Aici este casa mea. (Here is my house)
Friend: Da, e a ta? (Oh, it’s yours?)

You: Aici sunt pantofii mei
Friend: Da, sunt ai tai?

You: Aici sunt cartile noastre.
Friend: Da, sunt ale noastre?

You: Aici este cainele meu.
Friend: Da, e al tau?

There are a couple of variants on how to say “theirs” and “his/hers” depending on whether you’re using the formal or the informal.

When addressing someone directly, the forms are very simple: “dumnevoastra” for everything regardless of gender/number.

Ex:

You: Unde este bagajul dumnevoastra?

You: Unde sunt bagajele dumnevoastra?

But that’s only for when you’re directly addressing someone.

	Masculine		Feminine
	Sing	Plural	Sing	Plural
his (informal)	lui	lor	lui	lor
hers (informal)	ei	lor	ei	lor
his/hers (formal)	sau	sai	sa	sale

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That’s a little confusing so let’s break it down.

If you want to say “it is her car” and she is the kind of person you’d use the “tu” or informal form with, you’d say: Este masina ei.

You might recognize this form as how female names (ending in A) change in Romanian, such as Este masina Elenei for “It is Elena’s car”.

If on the other hand, the person is a “dumnevoastra” kind of person, you’d say: Este masina sa.

To say something is “theirs”, there are two forms:

For all informal groups (“tu” people), you always say lor. (There is another form “ele” but I’ll discuss that later as it’s fairly rare).

For formal groups, it’s exactly the same as above with sau/sa/sai/sale.

Therefore:

Este masina sa – It is his/her (formal) car.
Sunt masinile sale – They are his/her/their cars.

Este masina lui – It is his (informal) car.
Este masina ei – It is her (informal) car.
Sunt masinile lor – They are their (informal) cars.

Remember: as always, neuter words are masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural.

Este pixul meu – It is my (masculine) pen.
Sunt pixurile mele – They are my (feminine) pens.

Ok let’s mix and match!

Un frate al meu – One of my brothers.
Doi frati ai mei – Two of my brothers.
Un frate al nostru – One of our brothers.
Un frate al tau – One of your brothers.

Este prietena mea – It is my girlfriend.
Este tatal prietenei mele – It is my girlfriend’s father.

Woah, I pulled a fast one on you, no? Indeed I did. Let’s rewind a minute and see what’s going on.

Technically speaking there’s something called “pronominal adjectives” and have to do the fact that one noun is modifying the other one here (father OF my girlfriend) and so the “my” part becomes part of the receiving end of the action, rather than part of the “doing” end.

It’s quite complicated so we’ll get into this later. The good news is the masculine forms remain the same as what you just learned, even in these cases:

Este prietenul meu – It is my boyfriend.
Este tatal prietenului meu – It is my boyfriend’s father.

Therefore for now just concentrate on matching the “normal” gender and number versions of the regular possessive pronouns.

Furthermore there’s some tricky word order that goes on sometimes:

Este masina mea – It is my car.
Este masina mea verde – It is my green car.
Este noua mea masina verde – It is my new green car.

Definitely get into that later.

AND NOW YOU KNOW!