Rewriting sentences using the possesive form

Question

In spanish, I have an assignment that tells me to rewrite sentences using the possesive form. This is a second day correction thing, so I'm not cheating by using the translator. The book gave me the sentence "Ustedes tienen flores," which I understand to mean :You have flowers. I wrote "Tengo flores", which put it in the possesive form meaning: I have flowers. But the answer says " Son sus flores," which to me doesn't seem to make any sense, because that means "Are your flowers", and that's not even a sentence! Can anyone help me out with this please?

Answer 1

Tengo flores isn't a possessive form... grammatically, it's no different from "tienen flores", except the subject is the first person singular instead of the second person plural.

Son sus flores means, "they are your flowers", which is a way to express "you have flowers" using the possessive form. "Your" is a possessive pronoun: Whose flowers? Your flowers.

Hope that helps.

J

Thank you :) It does help. I appreciate it! - melton1995, Sep 14, 2010

Answer 2

Also note that Spanish has a few different ways for showing possession.

Son sus flores (short form possessive adjective)

Son las flores de usted. (prepositonal phase with de) Son de María.

Son las flores suyas. (long form possessive adjective)

with possessive pronouns.

Las flores son suyas. (The flowers are yours).

Las flores son mías (The flowers are mine)

(by the way, did you notice that the problem was not a verb problem?)

Thanks for the quick reply :) No, I didn't notice, I guess I was too confused ;) - melton1995, Sep 14, 2010