Dorm's capacity

[STEVENSAKURA]

A: How many students can his university's dorm contain?
B: Approximately 2000.

A: What's his university's dorm's capacity?
B: About 2000 students.

- Do these 2 small conversations sound natural enough?

Thanks a lot!

StevenSakura

[Erik_Kowal]

Both questions in these exchanges are grammatically correct, but they sound unnatural because they are not idiomatically phrased.

Try:

A: How many students does his/the (university) dorm accommodate?

A: What is the capacity of his/the (university) dorm?

I have placed 'university' in parentheses because I assume that it would be obvious from the conversational context that a university dorm was being referred to, so it need not be mentioned explicitly.

Both of B's responses are fine.

[Bobinwales]

This is a right case of "you say tomato".

Dorm to me is an abbreviation of dormitory, which the Oxford describes as "a large bedroom for a number of people in a school or institution".

That's one hell of a bedroom if it sleeps 2,000!

I have now discovered that "dorm" is also American for “Halls of Residence”.

[russcable]

From the perspective of Amereican English:

A: How many students can his university's dorm contain?
B: Approximately 2000.

The university has only one dorm (very odd) and it is enormous (very odd).

A: What's his university's dorm's capacity?
B: About 2000 students.

I would assume this is a typo and you meant "dorms" plural.

[STEVENSAKURA]

Dear Russcable!

- It really was a typo. It should have been the sentence that you corrected :)

Thanks very much, you guys!

StevenSakura

[Ken Greenwald]

With 2000 students trying to sleep in a single room one would have to be as quiet as a dormmouse. Also, I hear that bedbugs aren't a problem, but beware of those dormants.
______________________

Ken – November 16, 2010

[STEVENSAKURA]

Dear members!

- A dorm usually has a lot of rooms in my country (not sure about other countries), that's why I wrote : about 2000 students. So it isn't surprising at all when it sleeps 2.000 students :)

Best wishes,

StevenSakura

[Edwin F Ashworth]

The population of Benidorm in 1920 was only 2976.

[Erik_Kowal]

Whenever 2000 inhabitants of a dorm assemble to dine on special occasions, it would not be too great an assumption to imagine they refer to the event as a Feast of the Dormition.

[hsargent]

That is a large dormitory but the US Naval Academy only has one dorm for the student body so 2000 is possible.