Spanish Language and Culture 10-3Y

3.3 Verb Tener in Idiomatic Expressions

In addition to using ser and estar to describe people in Spanish, you have seen how to use the verb tener when you want to describe your hair and eyes in Spanish.
You learned that you use the verb tener when you want to talk about what you have:

Yo tengo una familia grande.
Mis papás tienen muchos hijos.
Luis tiene un hermano.

Tener is used in other descriptive sentences that don't translate very smoothly - these are called idiomatic expressions.

The most important one to know is that you use the verb tener to tell your age.
Listen to this new expression as you read - use pause to practice your own pronunciation.

¿Cuántos años tienes tú?
Yo tengo 16 años.

¿Cuántos años tienen ustedes?
Esteban y yo tenemos 15 años.

In English, we use the verb to be to tell our age, but in Spanish, we use tener (to have).You also need to use the verb tener to tell how old someone is. This is not done the same way in English. Let's compare telling age in English and Spanish.

English	Spanish
Use the verb to be	Use the verb tener (to have)
How old is Sara?	¿Cuántos años tiene Sara?
Sara is sixty-two years old.	Sara tiene sesenta y dos años.

Use this formula to tell age in Spanish:
Person + form of tener + number + años (years)

Examples

Yo tengo 15 años.
Mi hermano tiene 20 años.
Mis papás tienen 35 años.
Tú tienes 75 años.
Nosotros tenemos 60 años.

This is officially called an idiomatic expression - you can't translate it word for word.
But perhaps you can think of Tener with age as this: Yo tengo 16 años = I have 16 years (of experience in this life)