What's the difference?

[TrueTears]

"The photos of mine" and "My photos"

[shinny]

One's grammatically correct, the other isn't? (I think) =P

How would you use 'the photos of mine' in a sentence o_O

[TrueTears]

don't they mean the same thing?

[bturville]

The photos of mine isn't used in english, but is in other languages.

"Those/these photos of mine" works though, when clarifying specifically which photos you're talking about, but never "the".

[TrueTears]

oh sorry i mean these. So for example, these photos of mine are all over the walls and my photos are all over the walls. Do they mean the same?

[shinny]

I think one's the active form, the other passive where 'these photos of mine' places the emphasis on your photos, whereas 'my photos' places the emphasis on your ownership. As for whether they mean the same thing, of course. It's just a case of what you want to emphasise in your sentence. (note: eng. lang students come and clarify/challenge any of this, I've never formally learnt grammar or anything before, most of this is just intuitive >_>)

[bturville]

Basically yes, but you would use "these" if you wanted to emphasise which photos you were talking about.

So if you had taken 100 photos, and you want to tell someone that 10 of them were all over the walls, you could point to those 10 and say "these photos of mine are all over the walls".

But if they were ALL over the walls, you would just say "my photos are all over the walls"

[TrueTears]

ahh k thanks i see now