Russian · Chapter 6 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Possessives: мой, твой, его
Мой and твой agree like adjectives; его, её and их never change, which is one paradigm fewer.
The short version
My agrees with the noun, not with you
Moy, moya, moyo and moi change to match the thing owned, whoever is speaking. A woman talking about her brother says moy brat; a man talking about his mother says moya mama. And papa ends in -a but names a man, so it is moy papa.
Eto moy papa.
Svoy is his own; yevo is someone else's
In the third person, Russian will not leave his ambiguous. Svoy points back to the subject of the clause, so on lyubit svoyu zhenu is his own wife. Swap in yevo and he loves another man's wife, which is a very different sentence.
On lyubit svoyu zhenu.
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