大概

大概 (dàgài) is an adverb meaning 'probably,' 'approximately,' or 'roughly,' used to hedge a statement or estimate a quantity. As an adverb it comes before the verb — 他大概忘了 (Tā dàgài wàng le, 'He probably forgot') — or before a number to mean 'about': 大概三十个人 ('about thirty people'). It can also be a noun or adjective meaning 'the general idea / gist' (大概的意思, 'the rough meaning').

English speakers should note that 大概 blends two English senses that feel separate to us — the epistemic 'probably' (a guess about truth) and the quantitative 'about' (an estimate of amount) — into one word chosen by context. It is neutral in register and extremely common in speech. Compare 也许 (yěxǔ, 'maybe'), which expresses more uncertainty, and 差不多 (chàbuduō, 'more or less'), which stresses closeness.