/ma/
Translation
my (feminine singular)
Word origin
The feminine singular possessive 'my', from Latin mea, the feminine of meus ('my, mine'). The same root gave English my and mine through a different Germanic line.
- Origin
- Latin
- Root
- mea
Examples
tous .
My mother prepares dinner every evening at around seven.
J' l' .
I left my key inside the house.
soeur l' Lyon.
My sister studies law at the university of Lyon.
, .
Here is my car, it is parked just in front.
, c' .
My room looks out on the garden, it is very quiet.
Ma is the feminine singular form of the first-person possessive adjective in French, meaning "my" when the thing possessed is grammatically feminine: ma mère (my mother), ma maison (my house). Like all French possessives, it agrees with the noun being possessed, not with the speaker, so a male or female speaker uses the same ma.
The catch is that ma is replaced by the masculine form mon when the next word starts with a vowel or mute h, even if the noun is feminine: mon amie (my friend, feminine), mon histoire (my story). French does this to avoid the awkward vowel collision of ma amie. The pattern repeats across the possessive set: ta becomes ton, sa becomes son, all for the same phonetic reason. See the French possessives guide for the full table.
Where this fits
Used in
Stories
(3)Grammar articles
(19)French Adjective Position: Default, BAGS, and the Meaning Shifts
French Advanced Grammar (C1-C2): The Constructions That Sound Native
Conjugating French -er Verbs in the Present Tense
French Demonstrative Pronouns: celui, celle, ceux, celles
Reported Speech in French: Tense Backshift (dit que, a dit que)
Faire causatif: Having Things Done in French
The French Future Perfect: futur antérieur
French Imparfait: One Stem, One Set of Endings, One Irregular
Infinitive or Subjunctive: The French Same-Subject Rule
French Interrogatives: qui, que, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien, quel
French Negation Beyond pas: ne... que, ni... ni, aucun
French Noun Gender: Why Every Noun Is Le or La, and the Endings That Give It Away
Passé Composé vs Imparfait: How to Choose Between the Two French Past Tenses
French Possessive Pronouns: le mien, le tien, le sien, le nôtre, le vôtre, le leur
French Possessives: mon, ma, mes and the mon-Before-Vowel Trap
French Pronouns Y and EN: there, some, of it, of them
French Relative Pronouns After a Preposition: lequel, auquel, duquel
The French Subjunctive in Relative Clauses
French Word Order: SVO, the Object Pronoun Inversion, and Six Rules That Cover 90% of Sentences
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 2.