English lesson 3: Possession

“Possession”

Expressing possession is very important in English. Possession is basically explaining who owns or is responsible for something. You will find yourself in a situation where you have to explain possession almost every day in America. For example, you might be in the bank and someone could ask you, “Is this your pen?” Or you could be sitting in a bar and someone could ask, “Is this seat taken?” Possession is easily expressed in a pattern with the correct pronoun such as, Me/He/She/We/They + noun. The key is that you change the pronoun to the possessive tense, me=mine, he=his, she=her, we=our, they=their. For example, “My shirt.” The shirt belongs to me. “His sister.” The sister is a member of his family, and so on. You can also mix in abstract nouns. Abstract nouns are nouns that can’t be physically touched but are still real things such as love, courage, problems etc. For example, “Her problems didn’t go away when she drank alcohol.” Let’s look below at some combinations of Possessive pronouns + nouns you might need to know to speak better English.

Key words:
My faith
My progress
His courage
His compassion
Her pride
Her stamina
Our empathy
Our dilemma
Their energy
Their patience
Gonna= going to (reduction)

Here are some situational examples:
Example: Two friends
(Casual):
w Jen’s a cool girl…
u Yeah, but her pride’s gonna get her in trouble some day.

Example: Two co-workers
(Everyday)
w My faith in you to give the presentation is gone.
u Why? I can do it; give me another chance!

Example: Boss to manager
(Formal):
w The board members will not wait. Their patience is thin.
u So is mine. We need to make a decision today.