Breakdown of Moja babcia ma siedemdziesiąt lat.
mieć
to have
mój
my
babcia
the grandmother
rok
year
siedemdziesiąt
seventy
Questions & Answers about Moja babcia ma siedemdziesiąt lat.
Why does the sentence use ma (has) instead of a word for "is"?
In Polish, you don't say that someone is a certain age. Instead, you say they have years. Ma is the "he/she/it" form of the verb mieć (to have), so literally this sentence means "My grandmother has seventy years."
Why is the word for "years" lat here instead of lata?
When talking about age, the word for "years" changes depending on the number. For numbers ending in 2, 3, and 4 (like 22 or 34), you use lata. For numbers ending in 5 and above, as well as round tens like siedemdziesiąt (70), you must use lat.
Is there a trick to remembering the long word siedemdziesiąt?
Yes! It is built from two parts: siedem (seven) and dziesiąt (tens). Polish numbers in the tens usually follow this exact pattern, so 70 is literally "seven-tens".
Why is it Moja babcia and not Mój babcia?
Babcia (grandmother) is a feminine noun, which you can usually tell because it ends in "-a". The word for "my" must match the gender of the noun it describes, so we use the feminine form moja instead of the masculine form mój.
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