"I am taking my wallet."

Translation: Biorę swój portfel.

[simiecia]

I thought swój means your... Should this be corrected?

[immery]

swój means one's own, depending on subject it can mean my, your, his, her ,its, our, their.

[MissDominika]

However "Zabieram swój portfel" should be correct as well. We tend to say that.

[RyszardJahn]

Swój = jest lepiej.

[Jellei]

Oczywiście. Jako, że to jest lekcja o słowie "swój" zostawiłem to jako jedyne "best translation".

[Tuman88]

Why is "wezmę swój portfel" wrong??

[alik1989]

It's the imperfective non-past stem, so it conveys future tense meaning = I will take. Ok, the present continuous can also be used to refer to the future, but for didactic reasons we try to avoid such translations.

[KisYate]

Is the use of 'swoj' to mean 'my' a more refined/posher way of talking? I can see it's useful for avoiding ambiguity with the third person - I just wonder what people would actually say.

[alik1989]

I'd say it depends on the grammatical person.

For the first person swój does sound a bit more refined, however not posh. But it's really not a big deal if you use mój instead.

For the second person, not using swój makes the sentence sound clumsy. Twój is acceptable, but not a good choice.

For the third person, there is no other option, unless the possessor is someone other than the grammatical subject.

Note that in many cases (when it's clear who the object belongs to) the most natural option is to omit the pronoun completely, e.g.: 'Biorę portfel.'

However, if the verb doesn't indicate the possessor or is missing, then mój,twój, etc. can't be replaced by swój, e.g.: 'To twój portfel' - This is your wallet.

[KisYate]

Thanks. That's very helpful.