Property indicating "s" in German

How to use an possessive "s" correctly

A possessive "s" always refers to a genitive in German. In order to form this spelling correctly, you should know the following rules.

• In German, the genitive is often formed by adding an "s" to the respective word or word Names is appended. For example "the wheels of the car", "the father's nose", "Sebastian's ball" etc.
• It should be noted that as a rule (s. u.) no apostrophe is used to separate the "s" from the word stem, but that this is simply appended to it without further marking.
• In some cases, however, a so-called volatile "e" occurs, which can be placed between the root of the word and the possessive "s". A good example of this is the phrase "the leaves of the tree".

When is an apostrophe used instead of the "s"?

In certain cases, an apostrophe can also replace a possessive "s" in proper names. This is the case when the name itself ends with a voiceless s-sound and the genitive is not expressed otherwise.

• This is not how one writes to name the well-known communist work "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx for example "Marx's Capital", but simply "Marx's Capital", since no difference can be heard during pronunciation is.
• This use of an apostrophe instead of a possessive "s" is not possible with trailing genitive cases. In this respect, "Marx's capital is ..." is not a recognized spelling and would have to be expressed otherwise - for example with the preposition "von".
• Separating a possessive "s" from the word stem by using an apostrophe is according to the new German spelling, orthography only appropriate to express the basic form of a proper name.

If you follow these basic rules, you shouldn't have any problems using the possessive "s" in the future.