Hi. I reached level 3 recently and this particular kanji meaning (Few, A Little) is bugging me. English is not my native language. Maybe there is something I don’t understand but as far as I know it’s not the same thing. Few means “almost none” and kind of has a negative meaning and A Little means “some”. So what’s the meaning of this kanji exactly? Some or almost nothing?
English isn’t my native language as well.
In my understanding, the difference between a few and a little is it’s grammatical application. Rule of thumb here is countability:
A few sheep
A little rice.
But: A few grains of rice.
I’ve not heard of a difference in meaning, although someone native might give you more info on that aspect.
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I read it as few and a little. sukoshi
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Few generally means three (or a number close to it) and there’s no negative connotation. If you said “I ate a few cookies” it just means you had about three cookies.
Generally speaking though, kanji represent general ideas and may not have exact meanings. I don’t see much difference between “few” and “a little” conceptually, even if they are used differently grammatically.
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I like what @seanblue had to say. If I were to build upon this information I would say that “a few” refers to a quantity while “a little” conceptualizes an amount.
Ex.
I walked a few lapes around the track. (numerical value +/- 3)
I would like a little fudge with my ice cream. (concept of small amount not quantifiable)
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In my head, the main difference between “few” and “some” is whether or not you can count whatever it is.
You can have some water, but not a “few” water, because you can’t counter how many water you have.
You can have some marbles, but you can also have a few marbles, because you can count how many marbles you have.
@WaniPanchi beat me to the more concise answer.
We had the same idea. Cheers!
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It’s both.
It’s a small amount. A little bit. And even beyond that, uncommon or seldom, such as in the word 希少 (きしょう, scarce, rare)
EDIT: I originally had a spiel about “few” in the negative sense, but I’ve removed it on further reflection that it’s not as clear as English. “I have few games” in English has a negative tinge, but 少ない is not as clear I think. 少ししかない or ちょっとしかない would actually be a clearly negative phrasing in Japanese, but requires extra grammar in combination.
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Or it could also be a small person.
少女 for example.
it’s a little girl instead of “few girl” cause they wouldn’t make much sense.
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Kanji dictionaries will usually list this meaning explicitly as わかい, young. But yeah, it does also mean that.
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