Independent possessives: de mijne, het jouwe, van mij

An ordinary possessive sits in front of a noun: mijn boek (my book). An independent (standalone) possessive drops the noun and stands alone, the way English turns my into mine: Dit is het mijne. (This is mine.) Dutch has two ways to say it — a formal set (de mijne, het jouwe) and an everyday set (van mij, die van mij).

Add -e to the possessive and put de or het in front of it, matching the article of the noun you left out: de jas → de mijne, het boek → het mijne.

1. Start from the possessive: mijn, jouw, uw, zijn, haar, ons, hun.
2. Add -e, applying the normal vowel-length spelling: mijn → mijne, but haar → hare (one a, because ha-re is now an open syllable) and hun → hunne (double the n to keep the u short). Ons is the exception — it becomes onze.
3. Put de before a de-word and het before a het-word: de fiets → de mijne, het huis → het mijne. All plurals take de: de sleutels → de mijne.

The article follows the noun's gender, not the owner: Is dit jouw jas? Nee, de mijne is zwart. (Is this your coat? No, mine is black.) — jas is a de-word, so de mijne. But Jouw boek ligt hier; het mijne ligt thuis. (Your book is here; mine is at home.) — boek is a het-word, so het mijne. If you are unsure which article a noun takes, see de or het.

Dutch has no standalone form for its, and none for jullie (plural your). For those, fall back on the everyday forms below.

In speech and ordinary writing Dutch prefers van + an object pronoun, or die/dat van + pronoun, over the de mijne forms.

• van mij means literally 'of me' and works as a full statement: Die tas is van mij. (That bag is mine.) The set runs van mij, van jou, van u, van hem, van haar, van ons, van jullie, van hen.
• die van mij / dat van mij means 'the one that is mine', pointing back to a noun already mentioned. Use die for a de-word and dat for a het-word — the same die/dat that replaces a known noun: Welke fiets is van jou? Die van mij staat buiten. (Which bike is yours? Mine is outside.) Jouw idee is goed, maar dat van mij is beter. (Your idea is good, but mine is better.)

The van-forms overlap with the ways of showing possession with van more generally.

• Everyday speech and most writing: use van mij or die van mij. De sleutel is van mij. (The key is mine.)
• Formal, literary, or contrastive Dutch: the de mijne forms fit here, but they sound bookish and are used sparingly: De keuze is niet de mijne. (The choice is not mine.)
• Only for people: the standalone possessive names a human owner. You would not use de zijne for an object's part; there you use ervan or daarvan (of it).
• Whichever set you pick, match the de/het (or die/dat) to the noun you dropped, not to the owner.

English speakers copy mine straight onto mijn and write Dit is mijn for 'This is mine'. A bare possessive cannot stand alone in Dutch: mijn always needs a noun after it. Say Dit is van mij (everyday) or Dit is de mijne / het mijne (formal, matching the noun's article). The same holds for jouw, zijn, haar: Die pen is van jou, not Die pen is jouw.