Hello, all. Nesse episódio do podcast Inglês Online eu falo sobre as palavrinhas his, hers, theirs, etc. em inglês.
Transcrição
Hello, everyone. Today we have a new episode of the inglesonline podcast. To download or just listen to other episodes and download transcripts, go to inglesonline.com.br and click Podcast Inglesonline.
So there’s a group of words that I’ve written about before: I’m talking about mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. Ring any bells? These are not your regular possessive adjectives: this is my car, that’s her house, this is our dog… No, this is not what I’m talking about. I’m focusing today on the so-called possessive pronouns, those little words that are usually taught as a group in English classes, and that you do a couple of fill-in-blanks exercises and… that’s it. We can tell that it isn’t enough just by noticing that very few English learners employ them correctly in conversation or in writing.
OK, so just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, these are the possessive pronouns:
mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs
They are obviously used in ways that are different from the way we use my, your, her, our and etc. I’ve written a post about the most common ways we use possessive pronouns in English, so I suggest you take a look – here’s the link. Now, of course just reading about them once or twice isn’t gonna make much of a difference, so I thought I’d use today’s podcast to give you some audio on this topic. So I’m using that post as the basis, and this podcast is going to be all about those little words – to be more specific, and because we have limited time, I’m gonna concentrate on these three: yours, mine, and theirs.
Here’s the first one: imagine you’re at the school cafeteria with your best friend and you’ve both ordered a sandwich. The lady at the cafeteria hands you both your sandwich and your friend says “Hmmm my sandwich is bigger than yours!” What is he saying? He’s saying “My sandwich is bigger than your sandwich”. My sandwich is bigger that yours. “Yours” is the same as “your sandwich”. “Yours” may also be the same as “your car”, “your bicycle” and “your teacher”. Listen to these examples: “I parked my car just around the corner. Where did you park yours?” Where did you park your car? Where did you park yours?
“I bought my bicycle at Arnie’s bike shop. Where did you buy yours?” Where did you buy your bicycle – where did you buy yours? And how about this one: “Hey, I found this wallet in the restroom. Is it yours?” Is it your wallet? Is it yours?
And then the other person might say “Yep, it’s mine”. Yep, it’s my wallet. Mine means “my wallet”. I found this wallet. Is it yours? Yep, it’s mine. And let’s say you’re in class and Ms. Simpson, the teacher, is handing back exams she graded. You grab one and Ms. Simpson says “That one is Mary’s. Here’s yours” as she hands you your exam. So what happened? You took Mary’s exam by mistake, and Ms. Simpson said “That’s not your exam. That is Mary’s. Here’s yours”. Here’s your exam. Here’s yours.
Now let’s say you’re in a different class… Mr. Thomas is the teacher. He’s just handed back some homework to the students, but you didn’t get anything. Where’s yours? Where’s your graded homework, where’s yours? You ask Mr. Thomas, “Where’s mine?” Where’s my homework? Where’s mine?
Now picture this: you and your friend James are talking about things that belong to a group of people. Let’s say, it’s a family. You guys are talking about things that belong to this family. You tell your friend “See that house? It’s theirs”. That house belongs to them. It is their house. It is theirs. And then you say “That big truck parked right in front of the house… it’s theirs too.” It’s their truck; it’s theirs. The truck belongs to them; it’s theirs.
Let’s say your friends Mary and John own a house in the beach. You can’t just show up and stay there all the time. Why not? Because the house isn’t yours; it’s theirs. It is their house; it’s theirs. “Theirs” is the same as “their house”. It’s theirs.
So can you come up with a few examples? Let us know in the comments and talk to you next time.
Key expressions
mine, his, hers, theirs
Glossary
(Do they) ring any bells? = reconhece? Te lembra alguma coisa?
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
HI ana, thank you very much for the podcasts. Do you have good explanation with the examples and you have a good and easy pronunciation. It’s so good to learn a little more, and practice listening!!
I read and listen this podcasts every day!
Muito obrigado Ana, graças a você, meus ouvidos estão bem mais familiarizados com o “inglês falado”. O que antes parecia uma dificuldade, hoje parece bem mais simples! Continue postando e emprestando sua bela voz rsrs.
Greetings from São Luís-MA.
Hello Ana! This is the best podcast All the website. I’m from Belém PA and lesting the inglesOnline All day. It’s mistake that you talked. There are lot of people lesting to your site. Thanks Ana by one podcast.
Textos pequenos, com um áudio de ótima qualidade. De vez em quando, nos intervalos, dá pra aprender ou aprimorar um pouco inglês :-D Sempre melhorando as postagens! Obrigado, Ana Luiza, pelo tempo dedicado a este espaço.
*Sigo o blog através do RSS (ferramenta incrível, mas subutilizada)
Obrigada, Roberto! Que legal q vc consegue aproveitar. E outro dia mesmo me perguntei se as pessoas ainda usam RSS… parece q tem gente q sim ;) É mto boa mesmo, mas não pegou com o grande público.
