French Possessives

French possessive adjectives sit before the noun and agree with the thing possessed. The gender of the possessor is invisible in French - son and sa mean both his and her, depending on what's possessed.

The full table

Fifteen forms. The split is clean:

• mon / ton / son mark gender and number (three forms each).
• notre / votre / leur only mark number (two forms each).

The mon-before-vowel rule

Before a feminine noun starting with a vowel or silent h, French uses mon / ton / son instead of ma / ta / sa. The noun is still feminine; the adjective is using the masculine form for pronunciation only.

• mon amie (my female friend) - not "ma amie"
• ton école (your school) - not "ta école"
• son histoire (his / her story) - not "sa histoire"
• mon habitude (my habit)

When an adjective intervenes and starts with a consonant, the feminine form comes back:

• ma bonne amie (my good female friend) - amie is now buffered by bonne

This is one of the small French rules that's mandatory and that no one will teach you twice. Get it right and your French sounds native; get it wrong and it sounds like you've just started.

Agreement with the thing possessed

The possessive matches what's owned, not who owns it.

• mon père (my father - masculine singular)
• ma mère (my mother - feminine singular)
• mes parents (my parents - plural)
• notre fille (our daughter - feminine singular)
• leurs enfants (their children - plural)

A father and a mother both say mon fils (my son) and ma fille (my daughter), because the agreement is with the child's gender, not the parent's.

The son / sa ambiguity

Son livre could mean his book or her book. French doesn't distinguish, and most of the time context makes it obvious.

When it genuinely doesn't, French reaches for à lui / à elle as a clarifier:

• son livre à lui (his book - specifically his)
• son livre à elle (her book - specifically hers)
• le livre de Marie (Marie's book - just naming her)

Day to day, plain son / sa / ses carries the load without anyone needing the disambiguation.

Worked examples

• Ma mère habite à Paris. (My mother lives in Paris.)
• Où sont tes clés? (Where are your keys?)
• Notre maison est petite. (Our house is small.)
• Ses enfants étudient à Londres. (His / her children study in London.)
• Mon amie Sophie est médecin. (My friend Sophie is a doctor.)
• Leurs idées sont intéressantes. (Their ideas are interesting.)

Body parts: French uses the definite article

A quirk worth flagging. French often drops the possessive for body parts, swapping it for a definite article plus a reflexive pronoun.

• Je me lave les mains. (I wash my hands. Literally: I wash myself the hands.)
• Il s'est cassé le bras. (He broke his arm.)
• Elle a mal à la tête. (She has a headache.)

Saying je lave mes mains is grammatical but sounds wrong. The article + reflexive is the native default.

See also

• The French grammar cheatsheet covers the wider A1-B1 grammar map.
• The French articles page covers the body-parts-with-definite-article construction.