Distinguishing Mein & Meine: A Comparison

If you have read or heard about the autobiography Mein Kampf, you probably know that Mein in German means my. As the title of the book suggests, Mein Kampf translates into My Battle in English. There are, however, other words used for same pronoun ‘My’ such as Meine, meinen, meines, etc. Many students of German remain especially confused between mein and meine. This article attempts to highlight the differences between mein and meine.

German grammar is full of pronouns of various types such as personal, possessive, interrogative, reflexive, relative, and indefinite pronouns. It is the use of the possessive pronouns mein and meine that confuse people the most. Mein stands for my and remains as such for the masculine gender while it becomes meine for the feminine gender. This is true for the nominative form of the pronoun. As far as accusative form is concerned, the words are meinen for the masculine gender and meine for the feminine gender. For the dative form, the masculine gender possessive pronoun is meinem and is the same for the feminine gender. As far as genitive form is concerned, the pronoun for the masculine gender is meines and meiner for the feminine gender.

Key Takeaways

• Possession or ownership of an object is indicated using possessive pronoun and the word mein is used.
• Meine is used to indicate feminine gender or plural form.
• Both mein and meine are used in German, to indicate possession or ownership, and they are possessive pronouns. The only difference between mein and meine lies in their gender where mein is used for the masculine gender while meine is used for feminine gender.