9 Ways of Asking a Person's Age in Chinese - 询问年龄的九种方式
In China, age is a topic often brought up in daily life. Native speakers always use different ways to ask about the age of different people. In this video lesson, you are going to learn 9 ways of asking a person's age in Chinese, which are commonly used in real life situations.
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Sentences
Interpretation
This is the most common and useful way, it's usually used to ask the age of a young person or someone of one's own age.
“Jīn nián(this year)” can be omitted, you can just say “nǐ duō dà?”
For example:
Note：“岁” means “year”. It's a measure word of age.
This way is used to ask a kid's age who is younger than 10 years old.
“Jǐ” means “how many”. It's used to ask for a smaller number,usually below 10.
For example:
This is a more polite way to ask a Chinese person's age,but it can't be used to ask kids and teenagers who is less than 20. it's often used to ask an elder's age and used in written Chinese.
“Nín” means “you”, it's a polite way to say you.
For example:
To ask the age of an elderly person, one should use this way to show more respect.
For example:
This way can be used to ask people who are over 50 years old.
For example:
This is a more polite and respectful way to ask an old people's age.
For example:
Notes:
“老爷子(lǎo yé zi)” is a respectful term for old men.
If you are over 10 years old, you can just answer the number of your age without “岁”.
“Chū shēng” means “to be born”. This is an indirect way to ask about one's age, as people can calculate the age by asking about the year of birth. In spoken Chinese, it can be shorten to“nǐ shì nǎ nián de?”
For example:
Notes:
To express the year in Chinese is very simple,you just need to read the numbers one by one, and then plus the word “年” which means “year”.
In spoken Chinese, the first two numbers are often omitted when people express the year.
This question is also about the year of birth. But it's more formal than last one.
For example:
In Chinese culture, we have twelve Chinese zodiac signs. This question is asking what the person's Chinese zodiac animal is,then you can calculate the age by yourself.
