Spanish to Norwegian: whose belongings are being discussed inside a reported statement?
Resolve the owner before choosing sin or hans
A Spanish possessive can identify property, but it can also express a family relationship, an association or temporary use. The RAE’s basic grammar distinguishes these meanings, including a person’s wallet, friends and assigned seat. When translating into Norwegian, first identify the relevant relationship and person rather than assume every possessive describes legal ownership.
NTNU contrasts Peter tok bilen sin with Peter tok bilen hans. In the first, Peter takes his own car; in the second, the car belongs to another man. The visible Norwegian choice therefore carries information that an isolated Spanish su does not necessarily settle. Recover its referent from the full exchange before selecting the target form.
For an original Spanish collection message, one colleague may retrieve their own bag or a bag belonging to somebody else. Both descriptions involve a colleague collecting a bag. Changing only the target possessive can nevertheless change whose item is removed, so checking the action verb alone would miss a consequential error.
A reported statement introduces another clause to inspect
NTNU’s more detailed lesson explicitly checks the subject inside the same clause, including a subordinate clause. Its example about Katrine reporting that Borghild ate sjokoladen sin identifies the chocolate with Borghild, the embedded subject. A later example uses hennes for chocolate belonging to Katrine instead. The subject of the reporting clause does not automatically control every possessive within the report.
Imagine a Spanish message in which a manager says that an assistant has collected their folder. Establish whether the folder belongs to the manager or the assistant before accepting a Norwegian result. The person speaking about the collection and the person performing it have separate roles.
If the Spanish source clarifies the owner in an earlier sentence, retain that connection across the report. If it leaves two plausible owners, do not silently decide that the more senior person must own the folder. A familiar workplace hierarchy is not grammatical evidence, and a fluent-looking target can hide an unsupported choice.
The possessive ending can describe the item rather than the owner
NTNU gives sin, si, sitt and sine as forms agreeing with the possessed noun’s gender and number. Their alternation does not mean that the owner changes gender or becomes several people. A single person can be associated with one house and several books while different possessive forms appear.
For an original Spanish inventory, follow two lists independently: the people named and the things associated with each. A plural noun for books changes the item count; it does not by itself create multiple owners. A family relationship likewise should not become a property transaction simply because the grammar lesson uses ownership as its explanatory label.
The lesson also excludes sin as part of the subject in its illustrated constructions. Thus a phrase identifying somebody’s belongings as the subject needs a different analysis from an object linked back to a third-person subject. Do not transplant the object pattern into every location where a Spanish possessive occurs.
Review each clause for its subject, each possessive for its referent and each noun for its own number. These separate checks keep the same person connected to the same belongings even when Norwegian makes the reference relationship more explicit than the Spanish phrase does.
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