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Tener – Spanish verb for “to have”

Posted by on Jan 28th, 2012 | no comments home title

There are a couple of ways to say have in Spanish. The only one that we have used so far is the one that we are going to be reviewing today: tener. Now many people say that tener looks nothing like any English words, but let's think about this for a minute... When a verb ends in --er in Spanish then it is in its infinitive form, which is like the to before an infinitive verb in English. Let's look at tener without its --er ending: ten-. This, by the way, is called the stem of the verb. So ten- is the stem for to have. Are there any words in English that have the ten (or --tain) sound and has something to do with to have? Brainstorm for a minute about English words with --tain and then read the next paragraph. There are many, many English words with --tain in them and many of those words have some sort of connection to to have. Though we don't talk about them having have in them, they are related. Here are a few with definitions that are slightly altered to make the point: Con-tain To have within Ob-tain To acquire possession (have) Re-tain To maintain possession (have) Main-tain To have in a particular state or condition Sus-tain To have in a way to prevent from falling (support) Abs-tain To have not or withhold Hopefully this little exercise has helped you to see the connection between the Spanish verb tener and its existence in English. If you are interested in this evolution of language and the history of words, then etymology is a word that you should look up. We also ...

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