using different phrases to express same thing

[goldie]

as some of you know by now, i teach adults mandarin. i'm using Colloquial Chinese by Kan Qian as a guide, but there are a few things i've come across which i prefer not to teach in that way, such as:

你多大了, i prefer 你几岁了

another one is, 你看上去很年轻, i prefer 你看起来很年轻

I know it's only small differences and the book uses the first options rather than the second, is this just the different btw taiwan chinese and china chinese? am i being pedantic about wanting to teach them the second options? i don't want to confuse them with too many choices, if the book uses one particular phrase, should i, just for the sake of convenience use that one too?

[Xiao Kui]

I learned Mandarin in the mainland, and my teacher told me 你几岁 is used to ask the age of children, not adults, while 你多大 can be used for adults and children, the reason is that 几 is usually used with smaller numbers, so it wouldn't make sense to say it in reference to someone who's in their 20's or older. Now, this makes things fuzzy for me because I don't know what number is the cut off for using 几 Is it 12, 20? And then you have exceptions like 几百块钱 but I guess in this case it's like "a few hundred" "several hundred" and 百 acts sort of like a measure word. the alternate way you said "you look young" sounds like what i heard in the mainland.

[goldie]

you might be right Xiao Kui, about the 'ni duo da le', if so, i made a mistake in teaching them 'ni ji sui le', because i said that the former sounds as though you are talking to a child, whilst the latter can be used for any age. Yikes, have i got it wrong? in taiwan, i mostly heard 'ni ji sui le' even for adults, so maybe it's a taiwan/china thing?

as for 'kan qi lai' and 'kan shang qu' i heard the first one in taiwan more often than the second one, in fact, i don' think i ever heard the second one at all. should i go with the book or go with my preference? any zhongguoren out there who want to put me straight?

xie la

[tumujerome]

Xiao Kui was right. In northern China, 你几岁了 is reserved for kids, while 你多大了 is heard more as it is not age-specific.

However, it's not quite so with most areas in the south (including Taiwan and Fujian), where most dialects still have 你几岁了(or its variants) as a standard form. So it's not surprising to have a northern elderly feeling offended when asked (by a southerner) 老大爷，你几岁了？

As for 你看上去很年轻, it's just a northern variant of 你看起来很年轻. Both are perfectly Chinese, but they do reflect some dialectal difference. The Mandarin spoken in Southern China is basically a "second dialect" to the local people whose native native tongue could be Hokkien (Minnan), Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghai/Wu dialect, Chaozhou dialect, or whatever. Naturally, the Mandarin in Taiwan probably has more of the flavour of Hokkien dialect, to which 看上去 is quite “alien” .

[Quest]

or to be extra polite: 请问您今年贵庚了？

[hakkaboy]

Following on from tumujerome's posts: the forms recommended in Colloquial Chinese are good Chinese. There is no reason to think that a book written by Kan Qian - from the University of Cambridge - would contain faulty Chinese.

[HashiriKata]

There is no reason to think that a book written by Kan Qian - from the University of Cambridge - would contain faulty Chinese.

hakkaboy, no matter where the person is from, don't assume that they are fault-free. (Of course, this reply is completely unlated to Kan Qian. It's just about your faulty assumption )

[skylee]

using different phrases to express same thing ...

I am just back from Taipei. I went to the palace museum again and these two titles caught my attention -

Bronzes - instead of just 銅器, the Chinese is 邦國重器 ... wow... and those exhibits are important enough, like 毛公鼎 ...

The ancient art of writing - instead of just 書法, it is 筆有千秋業.

Through the careful selection of words/phrases, the chinese versions are so much more elegant and meaningful, IMHO.

[Altair]

And then you have exceptions like 几百块钱 but I guess in this case it's like "a few hundred" "several hundred" and 百 acts sort of like a measure word. the alternate way you said "you look young" sounds like what i heard in the mainland.

As I understand it, 几 implies that the answer will be a single digit or a single rod on an abacus. 几百 would then imply a two-syllable answer between 一百 and 九百. The only exception I am aware of is 几点钟, which, of course, can be answered with 十一点 and 十二点..

As for other variants of "How old are you?," I have also read that 您多大年级? and 您多大岁数? were appropriate for people over about 50 years old. I guess that adding extra words makes the inquiry more polite.

By the way, isn't there also some variant using 寿?

[Quest]

I have also read that 您多大年级? and 您多大岁数?

您多大年纪了？

By the way, isn't there also some variant using 寿?

老人家今年高寿啦？

[Altair]

您多大年纪了？

Yes, that is what I meant. By the way, how necessary is the final 了 in this phrase? Is it too unfriendly to omit it?

老人家今年高寿啦？

Yes, I think that was it.

Thanks.

[Quest]

By the way, how necessary is the final 了 in this phrase?

It's just more natural to add 了, without it the ending sounds abrupt. Many American born Chinese talk without these ending particles.

[LiYuanXi]

贵庚-- i seldom hear people using this now. I only use such terms when talking to a close friend. Like: 阁下是否有空？