Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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多 + Adjective — How Old, How Tall, How Heavy
疑问代词「多」— 多大、多高、多重
多 in front of an adjective asks for a number: 你多大？多高？多重？ Answer with the figure — and learn to dodge the last one gracefully.
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Memory hook
多 + 形容词 = how + adjective
Three questions, six answers
Two people, the same three questions. Listen for how the numbers are said — 一米六五, 一米八几, 155斤.
Tap any line to hear it
How much of that?有多……？
No pressure — just making it stick.
你____？——我一米六五。
Nǐ ____? — Wǒ yì mǐ liùwǔ.
How tall are you? — One sixty-five.
A new colleague asks. Which answer fits the question?
How tall is your dad?
Tap the tiles in order — it checks itself when the sentence is complete. Tap a placed tile to take it back.
Your sentence
你多重？——我50____。
Nǐ duō zhòng? — Wǒ 50 ____.
How heavy are you? — 50 kilos.
Your turn — say it
你多大？
How old are you?
你____？——我25岁。
Nǐ ____? — Wǒ 25 suì.
How old are you? — 25.
Give each question the answer it is asking for.
Tap a word to fill the next gap; tap a filled sentence to clear it. Every word is used once.
Word bank
0/4Big, tall, heavy — in pictures大、高、重
No pressure — just making it stick.
Which adjective does each picture shout? Match, then ask the 多 question for it out loud.
Tap a picture, then choose its word. Picked wrong? Tap that picture and choose again. Match all the cards to finish.
Your turn — say it
你多高？——我一米六五。
How tall are you? — One sixty-five.
How heavy are you? — 50 kilos.
Tap the tiles in order — it checks itself when the sentence is complete. Tap a placed tile to take it back.
Your sentence
Your turn — say it
你猜我多大？
Guess how old I am.
This lesson's characters
The three adjectives 多 asks about most: tall, heavy — and the metre that measures tallness.
tall, high
象drawn from life
A tower: a pointed roof on top, a tall body with a window, and a doorway at the bottom. The earliest forms are unmistakably a high building on a platform — the ancient Chinese drew height as architecture. 你多高？ borrows that tower for a person, and 高兴, happy, is spirits that have gone up.
heavy
会two ideas joined
Look for a person 人 folded around a bundle 東 with a ground line under the feet: someone carrying a heavy load. That is 重 zhòng, heavy — and 你多重 asks how much you would weigh on that person's back. The same character read chóng means again, as in 重新: the load that has to be carried twice.
rice grain; metre
象drawn from life
Six grains of rice around a stalk — the dots are the grains, the cross is the stem they hang from. That is 米, uncooked rice, the thing half the world eats. In the nineteenth century Chinese needed a word for the French mètre and heard 米 in it, so 一米六五 measures you in grains of rice. 米饭 is the cooked kind on your plate.
Take these with you
Everything worth taking away. Tap any line to hear it.
Words 生词
Characters 汉字
Before you go课后回顾
- Say your three numbers in Chinese once today — 岁, 米, 公斤 — even if the last one is 你猜. Numbers about yourself are the ones you never forget.
- Count the 多s you now own: 多少 how many, 三十多 thirty-odd, 多大 how old. One character, three jobs — that is how Chinese saves words.
- When someone asks 你多大 this week, do not flinch: answer, then ask it back. The question is a handshake.