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I usually use the possessives mi and mío interchangeably.

For example:

  • Esta es la casa mía.
  • Esta es mi casa.

However, do the two have different connotations? (e.g. is one more formal or used more in certain regions?)

In this case I used mi and mía as examples, but this would also apply to su vs. suyo, tu, vs. tuyo, etc.

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"Esta es la casa mía" may be correct, but I've never heard it from the lips of any native Spanish speaker. We always say "esta es mi casa".

We use the form "mía":

  • If someone asks "¿de quién es esa casa?", and you answer "mía", or "es mía".
  • In sentences like "ese es tu vaso y este, el mío".
  • (In many other cases.)
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  • You're from Spain? Maybe it's a regional thing. I frequently heard "la mía" or "el mío" as a standard idiom when I was in Argentina.
    – Mason Wheeler
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 21:43
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    Yes, I'm from Spain. Here, we do say "esta es la mía", but I've never heard "esta es la casa mía". Maybe they say it, in other countries.
    – Telaclavo
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 22:24
  • I totally agree with this answer (I'm from Spain too)
    – MikMik
    Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 7:04
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    Another spanish here agreeing this answer. Maybe the sentence "es la casa mía" comes from a region of South America. But it sounds to me like Italian, not Spanish.
    – elboletaire
    Commented Apr 14, 2012 at 15:04
  • @luke It’s super-duper more common to say “Ésta as mi casa”, but there is room for saying “Ésta es casa mía” (without the la, however). See my answer for the difference between mi casa and casa mía.
    – tchrist
    Commented Jul 28, 2012 at 23:08
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From your examples:

Esta casa es mía.

Esta es mi casa.

The meaning is the same. I would say that example 1.) emphasizes more who does the house belong to. Pretty much like my and mine, I believe?

I would use 2.) in a more casual way, something like Look! This is my house whereas 1.) is more for This is mr. Smith's house, that is mrs. Robinson's, but next house is mine.

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    As simple as: Esta casa es mía = This house is mine and Esta es mi casa = This is my house
    – MikMik
    Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 7:03
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The short story is that in this case, “mi casa” means just plain “my house”, whereas “casa mía” means “my house”. Hear the difference? In the second one, you say the word my with more emphasis, as though it were set in italic.

It’s super-duper more common to say “Ésta es mi casa”, but there is room for saying “Ésta es casa mía” (without the la). You might conceivably do that if somebody just said to you that that one was their house.

The stressed construction with mía at the end is the equivalent of leaning on the word in English, like saying “Yeah, well, this one is my house.”

See? That one would be casa mía instead of just mi casa.

You’ll find that Spanish will often simply invert normal word order for places where English more often uses stressed words alone. Inversion here would stress the my part. Sure, you wouldn’t normally do that, but on rare occasion, you just might.

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    When would you use "ésta es casa mía"?
    – JoulSauron
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 0:55
  • @JoulSauron Pretty only the sort of thing that would be as a response to somebody else first saying “Ésta es mi casa,” because you’re trying to contrast with theirs. It’s when in English you would say “And this one is my house” (as opposed to that other one being theirs). Or if you were translating "this house of mine".
    – tchrist
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 1:42
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    casa mia is seldom used. If you want to stress the fact that it's your house, you usually say mi casa (stressing the "mi").
    – Gonzalo Medina
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 2:34
  • @tchrist I have never heard "ésta es casa mía" in Spain, not it daily use nor in literature. Probably a couple of centuries ago or before, but never nowadays. We only say "esta casa es mía" or "ésta es mi casa".
    – JoulSauron
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 18:39
  • @JoulSauron Yes, that sounds more natural. I was just trying to explain to Luke the general difference between “mi cosa” and “cosa mía”, for arbitrary cosas. :) I wouldn’t consider “mi amigo” interchangeable with “amigo mío” either, although the difference isn’t easily translated into English.
    – tchrist
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 18:46

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