English Translation
Who is that old man?
Wouldn’t it be more natural to say “おじさん”?
@GunnerinExile
Both 老人 and おじさん have some problems.
The sentence is ended with ですか, so the whole sentence sounds polite. 老人 or おじさん doesn’t work well with ですか.
老人 sounds rude, so you need to replace 老人 with ご老人 to show some respect. ご老人, however, still doesn’t fully capture the meaning of the English sentence because 老人 is a gender-free expression. It could be an old lady.
おじさん is only for male. But おじさん includes middle-aged men. Moreover, おじさん could sound derogatory particularly when you describe a stranger. It has a connotation of “weird”, “useless”, or “shabby” for strangers although you can safely use おじさん to address an acquaintance (especially those who senior to you) with great affection.
If you stick to ですか？, I would suggest you
- あのご高齢の男性は誰ですか？ (pronounced ごこうれい; much better and sophisticated than 老人)
- あのご高齢の男性はどなたですか？ (politer than 誰)
- あのおじいさんはどなたですか？ (おじいさん excludes middle-aged men; おじいさん is colloquial and どなた is still a respectful way to talk about an elderly person)