Tener in the Present

Tener means "to have" — and it has to be one of the top five most-used verbs in everyday Spanish. You use it for possession (tengo un coche), for age (tengo treinta años), for physical sensations (tengo hambre), for emotions (tengo miedo), and for personal obligation (tengo que irme). It shows up in dozens of fixed expressions where English reaches for "to be" instead of "to have." This page covers the full present indicative conjugation, why it is irregular, every major tener expression, and the common errors English speakers make.

Present indicative conjugation

Tener is doubly irregular in the present: the yo form is unusual (tengo), and the remaining stressed forms show the e → ie stem change.

Note that the Latin American present paradigm does not include vosotros. In voseo regions, the vos form is tenés, following the regular pattern — see Voseo: Present Tense.

Why the yo form is irregular

Tener belongs to the small set of verbs with an irregular yo form that adds a -g- to the stem: tengo, just like vengo (venir), pongo (poner), salgo (salir), hago (hacer), and digo (decir). This group is often called the "yo-go" verbs. The rest of the present paradigm for tener then follows the normal e → ie stem change — but only in the stressed forms, which is why tenemos does not change.

You can see the pattern more clearly when you lay out the stressed vs unstressed forms:

See the e → ie stem change and irregular yo-go verbs for the full patterns.

Tener for possession

The most basic use of tener is to express possession. In Spanish, possession is typically signaled with tener, not with a dedicated "have" auxiliary the way English sometimes uses it.

Tener for age

One of the first things a learner says with tener is their age. Spanish uses tener + número + años: literally "to have X years."

Saying soy veintiocho años or estoy veintiocho años is wrong. Age is always tener.

Physical sensations: tengo hambre, tengo frío, tengo sueño

For bodily states, Spanish uses tener plus a bare noun. The noun stays singular and takes no article. English uses "to be + adjective," which is the main source of learner errors here.

Emotions and attitudes

Tener also introduces a whole family of emotions and mental states.

Actions and situations

Some expressions describe how someone approaches an action: in a hurry, carefully, or luckily.

Tener que + infinitive: personal obligation

Tener que + infinitive means "to have to (do something)." It is the standard way to express personal obligation — the thing you individually need to do. Compare with hay que + infinitive, which is impersonal ("one has to").

See Tener que + infinitive for a deeper treatment.

Tener vs ser vs estar

This is one of the classic English-speaker traps. English says "I am hungry, I am cold, I am twenty." All three are ser... right? No — they are all tener. Here is how the three verbs split the territory.

Common errors

Here are the mistakes English speakers make most often with tener.

Negative tener: no tener

To say you don't have something, just negate with no. One quirky detail: in Spanish it's perfectly natural to pair no tener with a negative word like nada, ningún, nadie, creating a double negative that English avoids.

An extended dialogue

Here is a conversation between two friends meeting for lunch. Notice how many different uses of tener appear.

Summary table

Tener with body parts and belongings

When you want to describe someone's physical features or what they own, Spanish uses tener + definite article, not a possessive. Saying tiene su pelo castaño is unnecessarily wordy — Spanish prefers tiene el pelo castaño.

The pattern tener + el/la + body part + adjective is the standard way to describe someone. In English you'd say "his eyes are green" or "he has green eyes"; in Spanish the idiomatic form is tiene los ojos verdes.

Tener for containing or including

Another common use of tener: saying that something contains or includes something. This is the Spanish equivalent of English "to have" in sentences like "the book has 300 pages."

Tener with que ver con

The phrase tener que ver con means "to have to do with" — relating one thing to another. Learners often try to translate "have to do with" word for word, but Spanish has a dedicated fixed expression.

Tener with results: tener algo hecho

While tener is not the auxiliary for compound tenses, it can combine with a past participle in a resultative construction meaning "to have something (in the state of being) done." In this structure, the participle agrees with the object.

This is different from he hecho la tarea (present perfect). The tener + participle construction emphasizes the current state — the homework exists in a completed form — while the present perfect emphasizes the action of completing it.

The takeaway

Tener is the Spanish verb for "have" — but it does double duty as the verb for states that English pushes into "be + adjective." Learn the present conjugation (tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, tienen), memorize the core expressions as chunks, and get comfortable with tener que + infinitive for obligation. For the full conjugation across every tense and mood, see Tener: Full Conjugation. For the complete list of idiomatic tener expressions, see Expressions with Tener.