"My sisters' children"

Translation: Mina systrars barn

[stephenbal4]

Is it really "mina" here? I thought it would be "min" because "my" refers to the sister, not the children.

[HelenCarlsson]

It does, but "systrar" is sisters:
Min systers barn - My sister's child/children
Mina systrars barn - My sisters' children (assuming they don't have one in common)

[stephenbal4]

Oh, I missed the placement of the apostrophe. Thanks.

[Dan952577]

Me too, I hate spot the apostrophe questions :(

[Peter275440]

Me too

[Herzuberkopf]

I put min too... But I'm proud for getting systrars right!

[OlliPllnen]

Why was systrarnas not accepted?

[stephenbal4]

That's "the sisters'", not "my sisters'".

[James704885]

I thought barn was child, barnen was children and barnet was the child?

[Tino_unmotivated]

Barn is both the singular and plural. While barnen means the children. You got the thing about barnet right.

Hope this helped, I'm really bad at explaining.

[Ezra746950]

The object of a possessive adjective does NOT take a definite ending - when will i get this through my head? I wrote, "Mina systrars barnen."

[devalanteriel]

Maybe it helps to consider that English does the same thing? You wouldn't write "my sister's the children", after all.

[Chickenosis]

Why systrars?

[HelenCarlsson]

en syster = a sister => min systers barn = my sister's child/children
flera systrar = several sisters => mina systrars barn = my sisters' children

[Chickenosis]

Ohh thank you.

[Olesja386275]

I don't get why not "systers" but "systrars". I would think that "systrars" is children of SEVERAL sisters...

[devalanteriel]

Yes, what's weird with that? If I have two sisters and they each have a child, then those children are my sisters' children. :)

[Olesja386275]

Weird is that I'm not very attentive non-native english speaker, and sometimes idiot) I'm SO SORRY!! THANK YOU for patience and attention)

[stephenbal4]

No need to apologize.

In English, if the apostrophe (') comes after the 's', it usually - but not always - indicates that the word is plural. If the apostrophe comes before the 's', it indicates the word is singular

Therefore "sisters' children" refers to more than one sister. The singular form with one sister would be "sister's children"

[devalanteriel]

As Stephen says, no need to apologise! We're all happy to help. :)

[travelpower]

Do you pronounce it "systrash"?! It sounds like that...

[Steph.Ro]

It's more like "systrarsh". An "r" changes the way the following "s" is pronounced. See words like varsågod where the "s" is also like "sh".

[floyat]

if the sentence is "my sister's children", how would I change the possession form of "syster" to be consistent with the plural "barn"? Or how should I differentiate "my sister's child" and "my sister's children"?

[kuroshekabir]

barnet or barnen?