El libro tiene cien páginas.

the book

Breakdown of El libro tiene cien páginas.

• tener: to have
• la página: the page
• cien: one hundred

Questions & Answers about El libro tiene cien páginas.

Why is it tiene and not tener?

Because tener is the infinitive, meaning to have. In a normal sentence, the verb has to be conjugated to match the subject.

Here, the subject is el libro, which is third-person singular, so the correct form is tiene.

Present-tense forms of tener:

• yo tengo = I have
• tú tienes = you have
• él/ella/usted tiene = he/she/you have
• nosotros tenemos = we have
• ustedes tienen = you all have
• ellos/ellas tienen = they have

Why does Spanish use tener here?

Because Spanish uses tener to talk about possession or what something contains or includes.

So a book can have pages:

• El libro tiene cien páginas.

This is more natural than using ser or estar, and different from hay.

Compare:

• El libro tiene cien páginas. = The book has one hundred pages.
• Hay cien páginas en el libro. = There are one hundred pages in the book.

Both can make sense, but tener is the most natural choice when the book is the thing being described.

Why is it El libro instead of just ?