Talking About Your Age

Learn how to ask about someone's age

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Lesson Transcript

Salut, je m'appelle Ingrid. Hi everybody! I’m Ingrid.

Welcome to FrenchPod101.com’s “Le français en 3 minutes”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn French.

In the last two lessons, we learned the main usages of the verb être, which means “to be” in French.

In this lesson, we are going to learn one basic usage of the verb avoir, which means “to have”. Today we will use this verb to talk about your age.

It’s normal for young people in France to ask each other’s age. Of course, it might be risky to ask it to people over 25!

If someone asks you Quel âge avez-vous? just know that it means “How old are you?” in formal French.

[slowly] Quel âge avez-vous?.)

In informal French, it would be: Quel âge as-tu?

[slowly] Quel âge as-tu?

Now you have to answer with your age! In French you use the verb avoir, to have.

[E screen]

Here are some examples.

“I am 18” - J’ai dix-huit ans.

“I am 20” - J’ai vingt ans.

“I am 25” - J’ai vingt-cinq ans.

“I am 40” - J’ai quarante ans etc.

Can you see what is happening here? We start with sentence J’ai dix-huit ans, “I am 18”

J’ai means “I have”. This is the conjugated version of avoir.

Dix-huit is “18”. We learned about numbers back in lessons 6 and 7.

And then we just add Ans, which means “years”.

[slowly] J’ai dix-huit ans.

Sometimes young French people won’t ask your age directly, but instead, will ask your birth year.

You might hear this question in an informal situation:

Tu es de quelle année?

[slowly] Tu es de quelle année?

This literally means “Of which year are you?”

You just have to answer using the two last figures of your birth year:

Je suis de quatre-vingt neuf which literally means “I am of 89.”

Now it’s time for Ingrid’s Insights.

Were you born in the year 2000? Sorry, you can’t say that you are of zero-zero. You have to say the entire year. Je suis de 2000.

In this lesson, we learned how to talk about your age and birthdate using avoir. Next time we’ll learn how to use this verb for talking about possessions.

I'll be waiting for you with the answer in the next Le français en 3 minutes lesson.