Ho vent'anni: avere and age

Ho, hai, ha: the verb avere

Avere – “to have” – is the second key verb of Italian, and it is irregular too. Four of its forms start with an h that is never pronounced: ho, hai, ha, hanno. The h is there only for the eye, to tell words that sound the same apart: ho (I have) sounds exactly like o (or), ha (has) like a (to, at), and hanno (they have) like anno (year). So in writing, the h matters: Anna ha un fratello o una sorella?

Quanti anni hai? – age is something you have

Italian says age with avere, never with essere: literally “I have twenty years”. The question is Quanti anni hai? (how many years do you have?), politely Quanti anni ha? The answer is ho + number + anni: Ho diciotto anni. With one year it is anno: ha un anno. Before anni, venti and trenta usually drop their last vowel and take an apostrophe: vent'anni, trent'anni. Inside a number, venti loses its i before uno and otto: ventuno, ventotto; and ventitré ends with an accent mark. Phone numbers are read digit by digit: tre tre tre, zero due…

– Quanti anni hai? – Ventitré. E tu?– How old are you? – Twenty-three. And you?

Ho un fratello: what you have

Avere also simply means having something or someone: Ho un fratello – I have a brother; Hai una penna? – do you have a pen? Before a masculine word “a” is un, before a feminine one una – the next unit is all about this. In a question about family the plural needs no article: Hai fratelli? – do you have brothers and sisters? Mia sorella means “my sister”, mio fratello “my brother”. A “no” works like with essere: Non ho una penna.

– Hai fratelli? – Sì, una sorella. Mia sorella ha dodici anni.– Do you have brothers or sisters? – Yes, a sister. My sister is twelve.