Italian 路 Chapter 4 路 Lesson 8 路 Grammar primer
Possessives: il mio, la mia
English drops the article before my and your. Italian keeps it, and the possessive agrees with the thing owned, not the owner.
The short version
Italian possessives keep the article
My house is la mia casa, literally the my house. In Italian a possessive is an ordinary adjective, so the noun keeps its article. The one exception is a single family member with no adjective: mio padre, mia sorella. Plural or described relatives, and anything with loro, take the article back.
la mia casa, mio padre
Suo means his and her
An Italian possessive agrees with the thing owned, never with the owner. So la sua casa is his house and her house alike, because casa is feminine. Context nearly always settles who owns it; when it does not, Italian spells it out with di lui or di lei.
la sua casa
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