B1 · Grammar reference · ASG10CAE
Expressing "less than" with "budao"
The word 到 (dào) means "arrive," but it can also mean "to reach" or "to get to" in an abstract sense. So in this pattern, 不到 (bùdào) means "to not reach (the amount of)," or, to put it another way, "to be less than."
- Keywords
- 不到 · less than
- Used for
- Expressing quantity
- Classification
- Prepositions · HSK0
Examples (10)
我女儿不到三岁。
我昨天睡了不到五个小时。
这件衣服花了不到一百块。
我家到公司不到五百米。
在美国，不到21岁不能喝酒。
她的病不到一个星期就好了。
他们认识不到两个月就结婚了。
李医生不到55岁就退休了。
爷爷不到60岁就去世了。
老板不到30岁就有白头发了。
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Summary, structure, classification, and adapted sentence examples draw from the AllSet Learning Chinese Grammar Wiki under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0; changes were made. This noncommercial reference is based on an October 2023 snapshot.
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