Breakdown of A nossa casa é velha, tem sessenta e cinco anos.
ser
to be
e
and
a casa
the house
ter
to have
cinco
five
o ano
the year
nosso
our (m/f/pl: nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas)
velho
old
sessenta
sixty
Questions & Answers about A nossa casa é velha, tem sessenta e cinco anos.
How do you build numbers like 65 in Portuguese?
In Portuguese, you combine the tens and the units using e (and). So, 65 is literally sixty and five: sessenta (sixty) plus e (and) plus cinco (five). This pattern is used for all numbers from 31 to 99.
Why does it say tem (has) instead of using a verb for "is" to talk about the house's age?
Why is there an A before nossa casa?
In European Portuguese, it is standard to put a definite article (like o or a, meaning "the") before a possessive word. Since casa is a feminine noun, we use A nossa instead of just nossa.
Why is the word for old spelled velha instead of velho?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because casa (house) is a feminine word, the adjective for old changes from its default masculine form velho to the feminine form velha.
Why doesn't the second part of the sentence say ela tem (it has)?
In Portuguese, you can drop the subject pronoun (like I, you, he, she, or it) when it is already clear from the context. We already know we are talking about the house, so the verb tem is enough on its own.
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