introduction

in lesson 7.1 Mauricio introduces Amy to his younger "menor" sister " hermana" .  Amy says hola as she is speaking to Pamela And says Cuantos anos tiene? I don't understand it as how old is she but how many anos have you or you have. It is worded so that it sounds like she is speaking to Pamela not to Mauricio. Can someone enlighten me on this?

Hi Larry,
​The "tu" form is used when speaking to children, which in this case  is tienes. The conjugation of "tener" for you (polite form), him, or her would be ​tiene  and means "How old is ​she​" because the wording if Amy said "How many years do you​ have?" would be "Cuantos anos tienes?" because Pamela is only 12.
​Hope this helps!  

Hi Larry, 

Amy is actually asking the question to Mauricio, not Pamela, that's why she asked "¿Cuántos años tiene (ella)? Remember that Mauricio is the one who is talking to Amy and vice-versa, just like when she asked "¿Es Lupe tu hermana mayor?", at the same time, is Mauricio the one who says "Pamela tiene 12 años". 

Cheers!
 

Larry: to answer another part of your question, "¿Cuantos años tienes", or how many years do you have, is the Spanish way of asking how old you are. Just yesterday during the English half of a weekly Skype session that I have with a Spanish woman, she said (in English) that her new neice "had 12 days."

She is much more fluent in English than I am in Spanish, and her phraseology informed me that making those grammatical changes between the languages is as difficult for them going our way as for us going their way. Comforting, it was. 

Hola Dan,
​Just a side note: I think you would enjoy Google Hangouts because it's like Skype, and free. It's fairly easy to make video calls, etc. It's a good consideration if you video chat a lot.
​Merry Christmas--
Laura