36589
How to correctly ask "how long have you been playing drums?" in a forum? I
tried to come up with my own question but I don't know if it is grammatically
correct and/or polite. Here is what I came up with

> 貴方ドラム叩いているますどのくらいの時間か？

Could you please help me with this?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-11T20:06:47.710
36588
2016-07-12T14:11:12.520
2016-07-11T20:48:04.420
16073
16073
question
grammar translation politeness questions
A good and polite way to ask "How long have you been playing drums?"
You are on the right track, but as someone has commented your conjugations
need some work.

However, I'll give you what I would suggest is a natural way to ask this.

```

    ドラムを叩き始めてどれくらいになりますか？
    
```

I think you could replace 叩き始めて with simply 叩いて, but I think the above is more
clear.

Besides your issues with です and ます, you don't need to use 貴方. Often in
Japanese it's best not to use any word for "you", as it is implied and each
word that means "you" has its own nuance.

If you want to use this for other things, you can just put the action in the
"pre-masu" form (i.e. 食べ) followed by this phrase:

```

    〜始めてどれくらいになりますか？
    
```

This would translate to "How long have you been ~?"

EDIT: Replaced 〜ですか with になりますか

EDIT: Added general pattern
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-11T22:22:50.907
36589
2016-07-12T14:11:12.520
2016-07-12T14:11:12.520
11825
11825
36588
answer