17 Comments
I feel 'i have nineteen years' should be accepted, as in "How long have you got? I have nineteen years" I tried it to see if it would work and it didn't.
As said in the 'Tips and Notes', someone "having" a number of years (ex 'lui ha tredici anni') is the most common way to say I/you/he/she/etc is x years old. So, while the literal translation is 'I have nineteen years', the actual translation IS 'I am nineteen years old'
372
I look at it as if there were four different ways to express the verb 'to be' in Italian where English uses only one. ESSERE - STARE - FARE - AVERE
Lui è un cretino.
Lei sta bene.
Adesso fa freddo.
Io ho diciotto anni.
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No, because that isn't how it translates in English. We don't say "I have ___ years." That's how it's expressed in Romance languages, but you need to provide the corresponding translation that's actually used in English, not a word-by-word literal translation. Also, I abhor "have got" in any case. Simply "have" is proper.
Me too! It's disproportionately exciting to get this as opposed to things like "I am a turtle," haha.
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Ma io ho quindici anni, le persone parlano que per l'amore, l'età non importa <3
That's me talking to women, I suck at it hahahahahaha
I have nineteen years should be correct because it is correct in english and its a perfect translation from Italian considering the sentence is not ''io sono diciannove'' direct translation of it makes sense
In order to learn how to speak Italian, you have to start thinking the way Italian sentences are constructed. They do not say "I am 19 years old." They say "I have 19 years." If you learn to translate it to English sentence structure, you will always be thinking.... "okay how do Italians say 'I am 19 years old?' Oh, yes, they say 'I have 19 years," so I need to say 'Ho diciannove anni.'"
