Breakdown of Quella donna ha ottant'anni.
Questions & Answers about Quella donna ha ottant'anni.
The translation says "is eighty years old", but doesn't ha mean "has"?
Yes, exactly! In Italian, you don't "be" a certain age; you "have" a number of years. So instead of using the verb to be, you use the verb avere (to have) to say she ha ottant'anni (has eighty years). Why is there an apostrophe in ottant'anni?
The number eighty is ottanta and years is anni. When a number ending in a vowel comes right before a word starting with a vowel, Italians often drop the final vowel of the number to make it flow better. So ottanta anni runs together and becomes ottant'anni. Does this apostrophe rule happen with all numbers in the 21-100 range?
It is very common when talking about age! You will see it frequently with numbers ending in a vowel right before anni. For example, vent'anni (twenty years) or trent'anni (thirty years). The final vowel of the number is dropped to make the pronunciation smoother. Why use quella here instead of just la?
La means "the", so la donna would just mean "the woman". Quella means "that". You use quella here because the sentence is specifically pointing out "that woman" over there. It ends in -a because it must match the feminine singular noun donna. Learn Quella donna ha ottant'anni and more in Italian
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