HSK 1 · Adjectives

少 shǎo “few” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 少 means

  1. few, less
  2. to lack
  3. to be missing
  4. to stop (doing sth)
  5. seldom

How to say 少

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale少shǎo3rd tone, dipping

少 in a sentence

  1. 少了什么？

    Shǎo le shénme?

    What is missing?

    Sentence #472901 from Tatoeba

  2. 你应该少抽烟。

    Nǐ yīnggāi shǎo chōuyān.

    You should smoke less.

    Sentence #9415402 from Tatoeba

How 少 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 少 (shǎo) with each of its parts in a different colour
少shǎofew
  • 小small · xiǎo
  • 丿slash · piě

Memory aidSmall 小 with one more stroke 丿: few, little.

How to write 少

少 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 少

Words with 少

多少duōshǎo · how many不少bùshǎo · quite a few减少jiǎnshǎo · to lessen缺少quēshǎo · lack至少zhìshǎo · at least青少年qīngshàonián · adolescent

More words: Adjectives

好hǎo · good大dà · big小xiǎo · small多duō · many冷lěng · cold热rè · hot高兴gāoxìng · happy漂亮piàoliang · beautiful

FAQs

少 (shǎo) means “few, less” or “to lack”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it shǎo: shǎo with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 少 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type shao with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 少 from the suggestions. Typing shao into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
少 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.