Breakdown of Meine Oma ist siebzig Jahre alt.
sein
to be
alt
old
das Jahr
the year
mein
my
die Oma
the grandma
siebzig
seventy
Questions & Answers about Meine Oma ist siebzig Jahre alt.
Wait, the word for seven is sieben. Why is seventy siebzig instead of "siebenzig"?
Just like English drops the "u" in "forty", German drops the -en from sieben to make it easier to say quickly. So it becomes siebzig. The exact same thing happens with 60, where sechs drops the "s" to become sechzig.
How do I pronounce the -ig at the end of siebzig?
In standard German, the -ig at the end of a word is pronounced like a soft "ich" sound (similar to the "h" in the English word "huge"). However, in southern Germany and Austria, you will often hear it pronounced with a hard "ik" sound. Both are perfectly fine! This applies to all the tens like zwanzig, vierzig, and fünfzig (except dreißig, which ends in -ßig).
Do Germans express age exactly like we do in English?
Yes! Some languages use the verb for "to have" when talking about age, but German uses the verb sein (to be) just like English. You simply say someone ist (is) a certain number of Jahre alt (years old).
Why is there an "-e" at the end of Meine?
Oma (grandma) is a feminine noun. In German, when you put a possessive word like "my" in front of a feminine noun, you have to add an -e to the end. That is why it is meine Oma, but it would just be mein Opa (my grandpa) because grandpa is a masculine noun.
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