Possessive Adjectives
உரிமைப் பெயரடைகள்
Dutch possessives — mijn, jouw, zijn, and the rest — never change for the gender or number of the noun they describe, an even simpler system than Spanish's mostly-fixed-but-one-exception pattern, and one that matches Tamil's own invariant possessive words closely.
Grammar Comparison
இலக்கண ஒப்பீடு
mijn/jouw/zijn/haar stay fixed no matter the noun
mijn boek (my book) / mijn boeken (my books) — mijn never changes
என் புத்தகம் / என் புத்தகங்கள் — 'என்' மாறாது
Every Dutch possessive — mijn, jouw, zijn, haar, ons/onze, jullie, hun — stays exactly the same word whether the noun is de or het, singular or plural: mijn boek and mijn boeken both use mijn. This matches Tamil's என், which likewise stays fixed regardless of what follows it — genuinely simpler than Spanish or German, where at least one possessive changes form.
ons vs. onze — the one possessive with a de/het-based split
ons huis (our house, het-word) / onze tafel (our table, de-word)
எங்கள் வீடு / எங்கள் மேசை — 'எங்கள்' மாறாது
'Our' is Dutch's lone exception: it's ons before a singular het-word, and onze everywhere else (de-words, and all plurals regardless of gender). Tamil's எங்கள் stays exactly the same in every case, so this is the one spot where Dutch adds a layer Tamil doesn't have — though it's a far smaller exception than German or Spanish's full possessive-adjective agreement.
zijn also means 'his' — context, not spelling, tells them apart
Jan en zijn boek (Jan and his book) vs. zijn (to be, the infinitive)
ஜான்னும் அவனுடைய புத்தகமும் (தனித்த சொற்கள்)
zijn does double duty in Dutch: it's both the possessive 'his' and the infinitive of the verb 'to be'. The two are never confusable in an actual sentence because they occupy completely different grammatical slots, but it's worth noticing early, since Tamil keeps 'his' (அவனுடைய) and 'to be' (இரு) as clearly unrelated words.
Vocabulary
சொற்கள்
| Dutch | Pronunciation | Tamil | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| mijn | mayn | என்eṉ | my |
| jouw | yow | உன்uṉ | your (informal) |
| zijn | zayn | அவனுடையavanuḍaiya | his |
| haar | hahr | அவளுடையavaḷuḍaiya | her |
| ons / onze | ons / ON-zeh | எங்கள்eṅgaḷ | our |
| hun | huhn | அவர்களுடையavarkaḷuḍaiya | their |