Spanish · Chapter 14 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Possessive pronouns
The long possessives - el mio, la tuya, lo nuestro - and how 'mine' and 'yours' differ from the short mi / tu / su.
The short version
A friend of mine is un amigo mío
English says 'a friend of mine' and learners reach for un amigo de mí, which is not Spanish. The long possessive sits straight after the noun with no preposition at all: un amigo mío, una amiga tuya, unos vecinos nuestros. The same trick gives you 'that car of yours': ese coche tuyo.
un amigo mío
El de él is the standard fix for su
Su and suyo cover five owners at once, so su casa could be his, hers, yours or theirs. When context does not settle it, native speakers swap the possessive for el de plus the explicit owner: la casa de ella, el de ustedes, el de Juan. This is not clumsy padding, it is the normal repair, and you will hear it constantly.
No es el mío, es el de ella.
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