I figured I should give you the correct answers to the sin,sitt & sina -exercise. Here we go:
1. Erik gillar sitt jobb.
It is Erik’s own job (ett jobb). You couldn’t really say that you like someone else’s job 
2. Man måste lyssna på sina föräldrar.
We listen to our own parents, and therefore – “sina”.
3. Johan och hans flickvän ska flytta ihop.
The “och” makes Johan and his girlfriend the subject of the sentence. Only the object can be “sin”.
4. Johan köper ofta blommor till sin flickvän.
In this sentence the girlfriend is the object and hopefully Johan is buying flowers for his own girlfriend – therefore “sin” is the correct answer.
5. Tomas och Björn bor fortfarande hemma hos sina/hans föräldrar.
In this case we have we have two possibilities. If we assume that Tomas and Björn are brothers and still living at home, we would use “sina”. If we assume that Tomas and Björn are a couple, we could use “hans” but that wouldn’t really tell us if they live at Börn’s or Tomas’ parents.
6. De ska låna ut sin sommarstuga till sin dotter och hennes pojkvän.
They are letting their own dotter borrow their summer house. The boyfriend of the daughter will also stay in the summerhouse. If we would say “sinpojkvän” in this case the boyfriend (the object) would belong to the parents (the object) 
7. Annas mamma säger att Anna kan låna hennes bil.
This is a tricky one. It is Anna’s mum’s car we are talking about, but since the car is the object of the subordinated clause (the part after “att”) and Anna (not her mum) is the subject of the sub. clause we have to use “hennes”.
8. Anna får låna bilen, eftersom hennes bil är på verkstaden.
In this case “hennes bil” is the subject in the subordinated clause.
9. Hon är ute och går med sin hund.
She is out walking her dog. I was thinking it was the person’s own dog, therefore we use “sin”.
10. Hon och hennes man är ute och går.
Here we have the same situation as in example #3. She and her husband together make the subject, and therefore we can not use “sin”.
Sara the Swedish Teacher
Hi there, your explanations for this subject has helped me a lot.
I have a couple of sentences that I hope you can explain a little further for me. As going by the rules I am sure I should use something else than what the answer is… but obviously I am missing a piece of the sin sitt sina puzzle
These sentences are taken from På G (the accompanying grammar practice book)
First question:
Can “men” be used to join two huvedstats together? I know it is a conjunction, if so, then I understand how to work out the subject of the second clause.
2:
(It’s the second part of this sentence- I think hennes should be used because it comes after a “så att”….. but the answer according to the book is sina…why?)
Britt Marie försöka spara sina pengar så att hon ska kunna resa till Grekland med SINA barn ibland.
3:
(Its the last HANS I dont understand… I had sin…)
Hans lön måste räcka båda till underhåll för barnen och till HANS egen utgifter.
I have written out the sentences and tried to break them down, but I am going wrong somewhere… It is taking me a very long time to really fully understand this concept!
If you have a minute or two I would really appreciate any hints on where I am going wrong
- maybe you could just add your reply here in the comments?
Thank you so much!!!!!
Rach
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Hej Rachel!
Sorry for taking so long! Here are the answers to your questions.
1. Yes, “men” is a conjunction and joins two “huvudsats” together.
2. In your sentence here it might be easier look more at the content and meaning of the sentence than the conjunction. I aree with your book that i should be “sina” instead of “hennes” in this example, simply because we are talking about Britt-Marie all the time here. If we replace all the pronouns with “Britt-Marie” we will get this:
Britt-Marie försöker spara pengar så att Britt-Marie ska kunna resa till Grekland med Britt-Maries barn ibland.
If you look at the second part of the sentence, after “så att”, you will notice that the object (Britt-Maries barn) belongs to the subject (Britt-Marie). In other words you have to look at each clause (huvudsats or bisats) separately and find out the subject’s and object’s relation to each other.
3. “Hans lön måste räcka både till underhåll för barnen och hans egna utgifter.” This one is a little extra tricky actually and again it helps if you take a closer look on the meaning of the sentence. “Hans lön” (his paycheck, his salary) is the subject, but I’m suspecting that you are thinking that the subject is “han” (he) and therefore you want to put “sin”. The subject can be more than just one word and is not always a pronoun. Here is an exampleof when we would use “sin”:
“Han måste betala för sina barn.” Here “sina barn” clearly belongs to the subject “han”. In your example the object “hans egna utgifter” does not belong to the subject “hans lön” in a similar way.
I hope I have been able to help you!
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THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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really helpful, thanks!
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