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Mi abuelo tiene más de ochenta años.

Mi abuelo tiene más de ochenta años.
My grandfather is more than eighty years old.
From Lesson 110:Same and different (el mismo, igual que, más de diez)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Mi abuelo tiene más de ochenta años.

I learned that "more than" is más que. Why does this sentence use más de?
You normally use más que when comparing two things, but when "more than" or "less than" is followed by a number like ochenta, you must use de instead of que.
Why is tiene used here instead of a word for "is"?
In English we say someone "is" an age, but in Spanish people "have" years. You must always use the verb tener (to have) to express age.
Can I drop the word años and just say Mi abuelo tiene más de ochenta like we do in English?
In English, saying "he is over eighty" sounds totally fine. However, in Spanish, it sounds incomplete. You almost always need to include años unless someone just explicitly asked you how many years he has.
Does the word ochenta ever change to ochento when talking about a masculine word like abuelo?
No, the numbers that end in -enta like ochenta (eighty), cincuenta (fifty), and cuarenta (forty) are invariable. They always end in -a and never change to match gender.

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