When to Use Possesive Adjectives vs Articles with "Personal" Objects.
Ok - so this has confused me for a long time.
I understand the basic rule for using possessive adjectives in Spanish. When we are referring to a body part, clothing or "personal objects' we should use "el' or "la" instead of "mi" "su" or "tu". I have searched and searched but can't really find anything specifically definining the "personal object" part of this rule.
What's considered personal? I'm asking because I've seen sentences like:
El hombre pone el bolígrafo en su maletín.
El hombre pone el bolígrafo en el maletín.
Both being translatate as "The man put the pen in his breifcase."
I've noticed the same discrepency with words like mochila, joyas, reloj, and tarjeta de credito.
It seems like when an object is something you carry around with you or wear, but is not clothing it, can be phrased either way. I'm just wondering if this is just yet another grey area that can be phrased either way, or if there is a subtle change in meaning if it is phrased one way vs the other.
That brings me to another question. If "el maletín" can mean either his or the breifcase, how do we know whose breifcase it really is?
Gracias por tu ayuda!
3 Answers
In the sentence: "El hombre pone el bolígrafo en su maletín." The presumption that the maletín belongs to the man is a valid one.
(The man puts the ballpoint pen in his suitcase) If the briefcase belongs to someone else, you have to state it. e.g.,"El hombre pone el bolígrafo en el maletín de su jefe." The man puts the briefcase in the briefcase of his boss--or his boss' briefcase. (Unless, of course there is a previous antecedent stating that "su" refers to someone else.)
If there are several maletines laying around you could make a small change such as:
El hombre pone el bolígrafo en su propio maletín. (The man puts the ballpoint pen into his own briefcase.)
"El hombre pone el bolígrafo en el maletín." translates to the man puts the ball point pen into the briefcase.
Where you should not use the possessives is with certain reflexive verbs such as.
Ponerse. Pablo se pone los zapatos. (Pablo puts on his shoes.)
Quitarse. María se quita el vestido. (María takes off her dress.)
Lavarse Los chicos se lavan las manos. (The kids wash their hands. Lit. They wash (to) themselves the hands.
There are more where the article is mandatory, but I just wanted to answer the main question here.
El hombre pone el bolígrafo en su maletín.
This is the kind of sentence that appears in what seems to be many textbooks, which makes them bad "teachers" because as previously mentioned, they lack context. Nobody talks like this.
In a scenario that some guy is being watched by the police and one tells the others what the guy is doing and the police investigator doesn´t know anything about the guy being watched, he will say: El hombre está metiendo (poniendo) un bolígrafo en un maletín.
To say it any other way is to make assumptions, so these silly textbook questions can´t be answered accurately by showing possesion without context. In real life situations context can be established by both spoken / written information as well as visual information, so don´t feel bad if you don´t understand the meaning of some of these textbook sentences. You can use these kinds of textbooks as long as you know their limitations.
El hombre pone el bolígrafo en su maletín. El hombre pone el bolígrafo en el maletín.
If you take a good hard look at each sentence you can see that neither specifies his. The Spanish word su does not mean his it means "belonging to the third person (or formal second person) singular or plural" (you know, of course, it can mean his, her, its your, their). The word el is simply the masculine singular the. I suppose that if you really needed to be absolutely sure that you are referring to his briefcase, you would have to say "su maletín propio de él".
Other than that is looks like bosquederoble and annierats gave you good advice in the comments.
