ABSTRACT

This question is used to ask about an adult’s age. Generally, Chinese people (including women!) are not offended by the question Nm dud dà le? (How old are you?). When the predicative adjective dà (to be big/old) is used in this context, it refers to someone’s age, not their size. The word lko (to be old) we learnt in Lesson 1 is not appropriate here because Nm dud lKo le? implies that the person being asked does look very very old.