English / Italiano

Possessives

An Italian possessive normally comes with an article: il mio libro, “the my book”. The article disappears in one case, a single family member. The possessive also agrees with the thing owned, not with the owner.

Where the article goes

Article or no article

filled box: the article is theredashed box: no article

The article is normally dropped when all three are true: a family member, singular, with nothing added to the noun.
Mamma and papà are affectionate forms, and both versions are heard: mia mamma and la mia mamma.
After essere the article is optional: È mio or È il mio (It’s mine).

All the forms

Pick the row by the owner and the column by the thing owned.

	Masc. singular	Fem. singular	Masc. plural	Fem. plural
my	il mio	la mia	i miei	le mie
your	il tuo	la tua	i tuoi	le tue
his / her / its	il suo	la sua	i suoi	le sue
our	il nostro	la nostra	i nostri	le nostre
your (plural)	il vostro	la vostra	i vostri	le vostre
their	il loro	la loro	i loro	le loro

dashed cell: irregular plural (miei, tuoi, suoi)filled cell: loro never changes, and only its article shows gender and number

Suo can mean “his”, “her” or “its”. Il suo libro is his book or her book. The ending matches libro, not the owner.
Formal “your” is Suo, often capitalised: il Suo passaporto.
With body parts and clothes Italian usually uses a reflexive pronoun and the article, with no possessive: Mi lavo le mani.