How do you know when to choose Le mien or La mienne?

Question

Sa bonne résolution est de parler français et ________ est de parler anglais ! His New Year's resolution is to speak French and mine is to speak English!Why is the answer "La mienne?I don't see anything that would explain this in this "quick lesson?" wouldn't it be le mien, since we don't know if it's a he/she?le mienla mienne

Accepted Answer

You have to check what le mien/la mienne refers to.
In this case it refers to résolution, which is a female noun. Therefore, you need la mienne.

Answer

You are not looking for a “he” or “she”.

You need the grammatical gender (and number) of the noun/possession. The possessor’s identity (but not gender) - my, or your, or his/her/its determines the m- , t- or s-. The rest is determined by the grammatical gender and (grammatical) number, of the possession/s. As Chris notes, “sa résolution”.

The same (mostly) applies when using the possessive adjectives, and because of “sa bonne” you can identify résolution as feminine if you didn’t already know :

Mon, ma, mes; ton, ta, tes; son, sa, ses = my; your; his / her in French (French possessive adjectives)%252Fsearch%253Fs%253DPossessives%2526model%253Dcompetency