(jǐ) - how many, a few, several in Mandarin

jǐ

Traditional: 幾

#5071 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

how many, a few, several

Word origin

Originally a pictograph (traditional 幾) connected with a small frame or loom and the idea of counting threads; it now means how many or a few.

Origin: pictographic
Root: a drawing of a small frame or table (traditional 幾)

Stroke order

几

Examples

？

How many siblings do you have?

。

I almost forgot it was your birthday.

。

He came back a few days ago.

？

How many books did you buy?

笔bǐ。

There are several pens on the table.

几 (jǐ) asks 'how many?' for small numbers and also means 'a few', depending on whether the sentence is a question. It reads jī in 几乎 (almost), where the tone shifts with the meaning.

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Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 几.

几乎jī hūalmost, nearly, practically

Used in

Grammar articles

(7)

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Mandarin · Free printables

几: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 102.