Haber vs tener?

Question

When to use haber or tener which mean to have in english? For ex. I know how to use tener (Tengo un coche en Perú y no tienes un coche en Perú)

Answer 1

Haber doesn't mean "to have" in the same sense as 'tener' does. Tener demonstrates possesion, amongst other idiomatic things. Haber is an "auxillary" or "helper" verb, and is typically used with another verb, for example "cómo has estado", where "has" is the second persond singular present tense of "haber". Haber has some other interesting forms that bear checking into.

Answer 2

Tener means actual possession. Haber is an auxiliary used for some tenses, it's useless without another verb. There is also hay (there is/are).

Not useless. "Has de" aprender como se lo usan. - Goyo, Sep 12, 2010

Answer 3

There must be several hundreds of posts with the title "Haber vs tener?" already, so I suggest you do a search. Anyway, in a nutshell: "haber" is used to talk about existence (ie. hay = there is/are...) and to form perfect tenses (eg. He visto = I have seen.)