gang1庚
Jyutpinggang1
Yalegāng
Definition
Age; years of age.
colloquialpeopletime
How it's used
Used almost exclusively in the set phrase 同庚 to describe people born in the same year. It carries a slightly formal or traditional nuance compared to the everyday way of asking about age using 幾多歲. You will rarely hear it outside of this specific collocation in modern spoken Cantonese.
Examples
Related words
Common mistake
Do not use this word as a general noun for age like 年紀 or 歲數. It is a bound morpheme that functions specifically to express equality in age between two or more people.
Grammar color guide
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Pronoun
Classifier
Particle
Connector
Grammar guides
- QuestionsFrom yes or no questions to asking who, what, where, and when. The patterns you need to ask questions naturally in Cantonese.
- ClassifiersCantonese puts a classifier between a number and a noun, and a bare classifier on its own can mean the. Learn the common ones and how to use them.
- ComparisonsHow to say bigger than, the most, the same as, and not as good as. Cantonese uses 過 where Mandarin uses 比, and that catches a lot of learners out.
