Unsere

Unsere is the German possessive determiner meaning "our" and, in certain contexts, a possessive pronoun meaning "ours." It is used to indicate ownership by the speaker and others and is placed before a noun or replaces a noun in a sentence.

Declension and usage form the core of its function. As a determiner before a noun, unsere adapts to the gender, number, and case of the noun: for example, unsere Mutter (our mother, feminine singular nominative), unsere Freunde (our friends, plural nominative/accusative). For masculine and neuter singular nouns in other cases, the forms are different (unser Bruder, unser Haus, etc.), while feminine singular in dative or genitive uses weiter inflected forms such as unserer or unseres. In plural forms, unsere appears in nominative and accusative positions. As a possessive pronoun, unsere can stand alone to mean "ours," as in Die Bücher sind unsere.

Grammatical notes and nuance help with correct usage. Like other German possessive determiners, unsere agrees with the noun it modifies rather than with the possessor, and it is part of the larger possessive system that includes mein-, dein-, sein-, ihr-, unser-, euer-, and Ihr-. In everyday speech and writing, unsere is common in references to family, groups, teams, or any collective possession, e.g., Unsere Schule, Unsere Mannschaft.

Etymology and related forms: unser is the Germanic possessive determiner and is cognate with English our and Dutch onze. The forms shift across cases and numbers in predictable patterns, aligning with standard German declension of possessive determiners.