Daniel Hanson

Posted on 11/07/09

On 11/07/09, lindsay wrote:
> My students want to know why you use "tener" with age
> instead of "ser". I am 15 instead of "I have 15 years." I
> just know that is how I learned it. Nobody ever explained
> the "why" to me. I told them that I would get back with
> them on that on Monday.

When I teach tener, (my students learn it first with
expressing ages as well) I tell them up front that that's how
Spanish speakers think. They think it's logical for someone
to have or to complete so many years and that someone isn't
really those years; it's something someone gets as they
complete another year of life. Then I tell them that one
language structure is not better than another and that they
have to just think of it as "different," not dumb or stupid
because it's not like how English is. I also remind them that
Spanish is NOT translated English. Spanish will have its own
way of expressing concepts and ideas.

> I guess next they would probably
> ask me about "tener frio" instead of "estar frio". Could
> anyone help me? I think that "estar frio" would mean "cold
> to the touch" and "tener frio" would be internal body
> temperature, but I could be completely wrong here. Any
> answers would be helpful.

Again, this is a concept difference between the two
languages, one syntactical structure is not better than the
other. Estar frío is more based on the speaker's
perception of his/her senses. They would not use this
structure to describe themselves. If they want to say
that 'they are feeling cold,' they need to use tener.
Ser, as Marisol pointed out, can also be used with
frío, but that is to describe a inherent
characteristic of someone or something——some innate property
or attribute. When this construction is used with people,
it's used to describe their personality: Esa persona es
muy fría. Here it means that that person is very cold-
hearted.

Does the distinction make sense now? Looking at lots of
examples and having more exposure with these contexts will
help.

Below I will put the Royal Spanish Academy's explanation in
its Diccionario panhispánico de dudas if you would
like to read what it says.

Estar entry in the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (Real Academia Española)

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