Questions & Answers about Tengo once manzanas y tú tienes doce.
Do numbers like once and doce change their ending because manzanas is feminine?
Is there a trick to remembering the words for 11 and 12, like once and doce?
Why does the sentence skip the word for "I" before tengo, but keeps the word for "you" (tú) before tienes?
In Spanish, you usually drop subject words like "I" (yo) because the verb ending (tengo) already tells us who is acting. However, speakers often leave them in to show a strong contrast. Here, adding tú before tienes highlights the comparison between what you have and what I have.
Why is there an accent mark on the word tú?
The written accent mark tells you this is the subject word meaning "you". Without the accent mark, tu means "your" (as in tu manzana). It is a spelling rule used to tell two identical-sounding words apart.