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Dagai - Daily Mandarin Lesson

Generalizations or Probabilities

By Qiu Gui Su, About.com

Dagai

The Mandarin word for "roughly” or “probably” is dàgài, made up of two characters: 大概. The first character 大 (dà) means "big” and the second character 概 (gài) means “general,” or “approximate.”

The literal translation of dàgài, then, is “large generalization.”

Examples of Dagai

Nǐ dàgài shénme shíhou huì dào?
你大概甚麼時候會到?
你大概什么时候会到?
When will you probably arrive?

Wǒ dàgài huì zài zhèlǐ zhù liǎng nián.
我大概會在這裡住兩年。
我大概会在这里住两年。
I will probably stay here for two years.

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