All the Russian Possessive Pronouns in 1 Clear ‘Cheatsheet’

There are 186 Russian possessive pronouns.

That’s a LOT to remember.

But with some simple tricks you can learn them ALL in around 10 minutes.

Curious how?

Continue reading.

If you’re looking for the tables with all the pronouns written down for each case, click below to go to the right section:

Russian possessive pronouns cheatsheet

Below you find all the Russian possessive pronouns. The tables make it easy to find what you’re looking for.

I added a short explanation of the possessive pronoun in each section. Also added some commentary that shows the similarities, so you can more easily remember all the forms.

Finally you can find a good amount of examples for each possessive pronoun.

Seeing a word in a real sentence, makes it come alive. And that helps you remember and understand it better

Russian possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, your, their)

The following pronouns are all direct translations of:

• my/mine
• your/yours
• his
• her
• its
• our/ours
• their/theirs

While at first glance it looks like you need to remember 7 tables of 24 forms each (168 total), in reality it’s a lot less.

You find many double forms in each possessive pronouns. And between different pronouns there’s also much overlap.

So in reality it’s less:

• Neuter forms are the same as masculine forms (except for the nominative case), so that’s already 30 words less to remember.
• His, her, its, and theirs do not change, to that’s another 20 less.
• Feminine genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional posessive pronouns are also the same. That’s 18 words less to remember.
• Accusative forms in the masculine/plural are either nominative or genitive. Remove 12 extra forms.

That brings us to a total of 88 words you need to remember.

But there’s more.

If you take a quick look through the tables on this page, you might quickly find that all the endings for each mode (masculine, neuter, feminine and plural) are THE SAME for each pronoun.

• моего – твоего
• наших – ваших
• моим – своим
• чьего – его

So all you need to remember is a table for 1 possessive pronoun + the stem of the 6 other possessive pronouns.

13 + 6 = 19 forms.

But it gets even better.

Possessive pronouns basically use the endings of regular adjectives. So if you already have experience with those, it will be even easier to learn them all.

The moral of the story?

You likely can learn all the 168 words on this page within 10 minutes.

Enjoy 🙂

‘My’ in Russian

See if you can figure out which possessive pronoun was used in the examples below:

• Вокруг моего дома холм – There’s a hill around my house
• Моей собаке нравится бежать – my dog likes to run
• моему коту нравится лежать на солнышке – your cat likes to lay in the sun
• Хотите провести отпуск вместе с моими родителями? – Do you want to join the vacation with my parents?

‘Your’ in Russian

Examples:

• Я не вижу твоих друзей – I don’t see your friends.
• Как поживает твоя мама? – How is your mother doing?
• Поговорим о твоих экзаменах … – Let’s talk about your exams…
• Я кормлю твою собаку – I’m feeding your dog

‘His, ‘her’, ‘their’ and ‘its’ in Russian

Examples:

• Я слышал, его отец на пенсии – I heard his father retired
• Я не хочу говорить о её оскорблении – I don’t want to talk about her insult.
• Никто никогда не видел их мать – No one has ever seen their mother

‘Our’ in Russian

Examples:

• Наш дом маленький – Our house is small
• Я не хочу говорить о наших проблемах – I don’t want to talk about our problems
• Нашим родителям нравится путешествовать на море – Our parents like to travel to the sea

‘Your’ plural in Russian

Examples:

• Сколько стоила ваша квартира? – How much costed your apartment?
• Это большие деньги для вашей квартиры – That’s a lot of money for your apartment.
• в вашей квартире есть бассейн? -Is there a swimming pool in your apartment?

Reflexive possessive pronouns (me/you/his/her/its/our/your/their own)

Examples:

• Они кормят своих питомцев – they feed their pets
• Он водит свою машину – He drives his own car
• Почему ты всегда говоришь только о своих проблемах и желаниях? – Why do you always only talk about your problems and desires?

Interrogative possessive pronoun (whose)

Examples:

• О чьем доме ты говоришь? – About whose house are you talking?
• Чью книгу ты купил? – Whose book did you buy?
• На чьи деньги вы взяли взаймы, чтобы начать бизнес? – whose money did you lend to start the business?