Questions & Answers about El año tiene doce meses.
Why is the plural of mes spelled meses?
In Spanish, if a noun ends in a vowel, you usually just add -sto make it plural. But if it ends in a consonant (like the 's' in mes), you add -es. So, one month is un mes, and twelve months are doce meses.
Does the squiggly line over the 'n' in año matter?
Yes, it is extremely important! The letter ñ is a completely different letter from n and makes an "ny" sound (like in "canyon"). If you leave it off and write ano, you are writing a completely different word (which means "anus"). Always remember the tilde (the squiggly line) on año!
Why do we use tiene here?
Tiene comes from the verbtener (to have). Because "the year" (el año) is a single thing, we treat it as an "it" and use the "he/she/it" form of the verb, which is tiene. By contrast, you would use tengo for "I have", and tienes for "you have".
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