📖LearnModule 1 · Lesson 19 of 30Basic User · CEFR A1, first halfUnit 4 · Me and my family
Tengo — I have, and saying your age
Module 1 of the free Spanish course (CEFR A1, first half), lesson 19 of 30: Tener, "to have": yo tengo, tú tienes, él tiene / ella tiene. On this page: 7 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line, the conjugation table and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's QR.
The words
Spanish
English
Say it
yo tengo
I have
yoh TEHN-goh
tú tienes
you have
too TYEH-nehs
él tiene
he has
ehl TYEH-neh
ella tiene
she has
EH-yah TYEH-neh
tengo siete años
I am seven years old
TEHN-goh SYEH-teh AH-nyohs
¿cuántos años tienes?
how old are you?
KWAHN-tohs AH-nyohs TYEH-nehs
tengo un hermano
I have a brother
TEHN-goh oon ehr-MAH-noh
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
La regla · The rule
Tener, "to have": yo tengo, tú tienes, él tiene / ella tiene. Age is something you HAVE in Spanish: Tengo siete años — literally "I have seven years". Say your own age now: tengo + number + años.
Y también · And also
The everyday sense works exactly as expected: Tengo un gato. ¿Tienes un lápiz? Ella tiene dos hermanas. Verb first, thing after — no pronoun needed.
Ojo · Watch out
Age uses tener, never ser: tengo siete años. And años needs its ñ — año and ano are different words.
tener — the table
yo tengo · tú tienes · él/ella tiene
Do it now — on paper
Say all 7 words aloud twice from the respelling, then once from the Spanish spelling alone — begin with yo tengo.
Copy every word with its accents on paper; then cover the English column and write each meaning back from the Spanish.
Write out tener in full from memory, every person, and check each form against the table above.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The Spanish Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.