HSK 1 · Question Words

几 jǐ “how many (small)” in Chinese

Traditional 幾

What 几 means

  1. how many (small)
  2. how many
  3. how much
  4. several
  5. a few

How to say 几

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale几jǐ3rd tone, dipping

几 in a sentence

  1. 你几岁了？

    Nǐ jǐ suì le?

    How old are you?

    Sentence #345427 from Tatoeba

  2. 你有几本书？

    Nǐ yǒu jǐ běn shū?

    How many books do you have?

    Sentence #333472 from Tatoeba

  3. 今天是几号？

    Jīntiān shì jǐ hào?

    What’s the date today?

    Sentence #408909 from Tatoeba

How 几 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 几 (jǐ) with each of its parts in a different colour
几jǐhow many; how much
  • 丿slash · piě
  • 乙second (cyclical) · yǐ

How to write 几

几 2 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

几 (jǐ) stroke order chart: each stroke of the character in the order you write it
Stroke order chart for 几 (jǐ). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 几

Words with 几

几乎jīhū · almost

More words: Question Words

谁shéi · who哪nǎ · which哪儿nǎr · where怎么zěnme · how怎么样zěnmeyàng · how is it多少duōshǎo · how many哪里nǎlǐ · where?哪个nǎge · which one?

FAQs

几 (jǐ) means “how many (small)” or “how many”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it jǐ: jǐ with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 几 is written 幾. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type ji with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 几 from the suggestions. Typing ji into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
几 is an HSK 1 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.