The way we ask and tell age in Spanish is actually quite different from how we do it in English. In English, we use the verb to be. We say "I'm twenty-five years old." We ask "How old are you?"
In Spanish we do not use the verb to be to ask and tell our age. We actually use the verb to have. If we were to tell our age the way they do in Spanish, it would go something like this: "I have twenty-five years." or "How many years do you have?"
It might sound strange to we English speakers, but this is actually the way many languages deal with the concept of age.
Alright, now that we know in what form we ask and tell age, let's do it in Spanish. We need to know how to say "to have." That verb is tener.
Tener is known as a stem-changing verb, it's irregular, and it's a go verb. I have other lessons that go over what those terms mean, so I won't explain them all here.
We conjugate tener in the following way:
yo tengo- I have
tú tienes - you have
él/ella/usted tiene - he/she/you (formal) have
nosotros(as) tenemos - we have
vosotros(as) tenéis - you all (Spain) have
ustedes/ellos(as) tienen - you all (Latin America + Spain(but formal in Spain)/they have
Now, like I stated above, in Spanish we would say "I have twenty-five years" and would ask "How many years do you have?" So let's see some examples of different subjects asking and telling about age.
- Yo tengo veinticinco años = I am twenty-five years old.
- ¿Cuántos años tienes tú? = How old are you (informal)?
- Mi mamá tiene cuarenta y cinco años = My mom is forty-five years old.
- Nosotros tenemos diez y quince años = We are ten and fifteen years old.
- Vosotros, ¿cuántos años tenéis? = You all (Spain), how old are you?
- Ellos tienen más de cincuenta años. = They are older than fifty.
This is a lesson where you need to know your numbers, so go review those and find out how to say your age so you can tell everyone you know!!!!
Again, this is the formula for how to tell your age:
"Yo tengo ________ años." = I am _______ years old.
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