Inquiring about age?
wufeifei
July 06, 2008, 10:31 AM posted in General DiscussionIt's such a simple topic, but it constantly creates confusion, at least for me: How exactly does you ask for the age of someone?
According to my textbook it's 你今年多少岁?
The CP dictionary contains 你几岁了？, 你多大了？*, 你几岁？, apperently used interchangeably.
In Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Claudia Ross/Jing-Heng Sheng Ma) the following sentences can be found : 你多大？ (young person), 你几岁？(child), 你多大年纪?*/你多大岁数?(adult), 您今年高寿?(elderly person, polite)
In addition, they note that 几 is used for small numbers and is therefore not possible when your interlocutor is an adult.
So far, I have only encountered the questions marked with an asterisk.
Which are the most common expressions? When are these patterns appropriate, respectively?
Is the 了 compulsory (or does it rather indicate that the current age is of interest)? What about the distinction between 几 and 多大?
Thank you so much in advance for helping me to clear this up.
wufeifei
July 07, 2008, 05:44 PMNo one seems to be in the mood for helping me...
klgardensong
July 07, 2008, 07:27 PMwufeifei,
I was glad to see your topic, and was also hoping others would chime in.
The one thing I can say is that I was always taught, and have since seen in various text books, that 几岁 is used with children roughly 10 and under. I've not seen it or heard it used to ask adults how old they are.
I was taught that in this context the difference between 几岁 and 多大 was precisely the one you've noted: 几 is for small numbers and therefore young children.
In terms of the 了, I don't think it's compulsory. You can certainly ask: 你今年多大 or 几岁? without the 了.
If it's someone's birthday you probably would use the 了 because you're asking about a change in status (e.g. their age).
I hope this helps some, and that others will join the discussion.
wufeifei
July 07, 2008, 08:16 PMYeah, I had the same concept of the 了 usage.
I would have accepted these various forms as they were, if I hadn't come across 你今年多少岁? in a beginners textbook that I merely went through to pick up one or two vocab items I might have missed. 多少岁 simply sounds weird to me.
Another problem that always made me frown was that ChinesePod also applies the 几 pattern for older people, as in the aforementioned 李先生几岁了？
wufeifei
July 06, 2008, 10:34 AMPlease ignore the typos...I should add that in the example sentences in the CP dictionary 几 is not confined to children, e.g.: 李先生几岁了？他四十。
I know there is a lesson about this, but I have not found coverage of all these forms there.