la edad
/la edad/from spelling rules
The English phrase "the age" is translated into Spanish as la edad.
la edad refers to the concept of age or a specific age. When talking about age in Spanish, you do not use la edad to ask someone how old they are. Instead, you ask how many years they have using phrases like ¿Cuántos años tienes? or ¿Cuántos años tiene usted? To state your own age, you use the structure Tengo X años (I am X years old).
Which one should you use?
While la edad means "the age," it is not the phrase used to ask someone's age directly. To ask a person's age, you would instead ask how many years they have.
How do you pronounce it?
/la edad/
What mistakes should you avoid?
English speakers sometimes mistakenly use tener la edad (to have the age) to say "to be [X] years old." Instead, Spanish uses the verb tener with the number directly, such as tiene 20 años.
Did you know?
- Spanish uses edad in the term tercera edad to politely refer to the 'third age' or senior citizens.
- The word edad can be used to describe the 'age' of an object, but for wine or cheese, Spanish speakers often use añada to refer to the vintage.
- The Spanish word edad shares its distant roots with the English words 'eternity' and 'eon'.
Examples in context
- Tom murió a la edad de 97 años.Tom died at the age of 97.This sentence is useful for seeing how to express age at the time of death using la edad.Tatoeba #1386636 by marcelostockle, translation #1026256 by CK
- Ella murió a la edad de 54 años.She died at the age of 54.Tatoeba #636785 by Leono, translation #956942 by CM
- Él murió a la edad de setenta años.He died at the age of seventy.Tatoeba #1892887 by marcelostockle, translation #288636 by CK
- 26 more sentences on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Elena and Javier are talking about a new coworker.
- Elena¿Sabes cuál es la edad de Marcos?Do you know Marcos's age?
- JavierNo, no sé la edad exacta.No, I don't know the exact age.
- ElenaParece muy joven para su edad.He seems very young for his age.
- JavierEs verdad, se ve muy joven.It's true, he looks very young.
Sources
- IPA marked “from spelling rules” is derived from standard Spanish spelling, where Wiktionary gives none.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries edad, la, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
