几 (jǐ): how many

Meanings

1 how many
2 several; a few

Characters

几

jǐ

how many; several

Examples

你有几个孩子？

Nǐ yǒu jǐ gè háizi?

How many children do you have?

现在几点？

Xiànzài jǐ diǎn?

What time is it now?

我等了几分钟。

Wǒ děng le jǐ fēnzhōng.

I waited for a few minutes.

Tips

grammar

几 as a question word expects a small-number answer (usually under ten). For larger or open-ended quantities use 多少: 几个人？ (how many people? - expecting few) vs. 多少人？ (how many people? - could be any number).

mistakes

Two readings on the same character. 几 (3rd tone) = 'how many / a few' - by far the most common, used in everyday questions and compounds like 几个, 几点, 几岁. 几 (1st tone) = 'small table' / 'almost', a much narrower set: 茶几, 几乎, 几率. When in doubt, read jǐ.

Components

pictograph

几 jī

small table; how many (jǐ)

Self-component. 几 is itself Kangxi radical 16. Oracle and seal forms picture a low side-table or armrest with two short legs - the kind of stand on which incense, scrolls or tea were placed. The small-table sense survives in 茶几 (tea table). The very common interrogative 几 'how many' is a phonetic borrowing of the same graph and unrelated to the table picture; it came in via the simplification of 幾 into 几.

Radical

Table Kangxi #16

The 几 radical, originally a pictograph of a low armrest or stool (Shuowen: 坐所以凭也). A small but visible Kangxi class - 凡, 凯, 凳, 凭 - usually placed at the bottom of the host character. In simplified Chinese, 几 also doubles as the high-frequency word for 'how many'.