少 – few, little

4 strokesTaught in grade 2#287 in newspaper frequencyN5 vocabulary

The kanji 少 means few, little. Its on’yomi (Chinese-derived reading) is ショウ (shou); its kun’yomi (native Japanese reading) is すく.ない、すこ.し (sukunai, sukoshi). It is written with 4 strokes, under radical 小 (no. 42).

Stroke order

Stroke order from KanjiVG. Practise others with the stroke order lookup.

Readings

Type	Reading	Romaji
On’yomi	ショウ	shou
Kun’yomi	すく.ない	sukunai
Kun’yomi	すこ.し	sukoshi

A dot separates the kanji’s part from the okurigana (kana written after it), e.g. まな.ぶ → 学ぶ.

Radical and components

Radical: 小 (Kangxi radical 42). Components: ノ・小.

Words using 少

少しすこしa little少ないすくないfew少女しょうじょgirl (usu. between 7 and 17)少々しょうしょうa little少年しょうねんboy減少げんしょうdecrease多少たしょうa little少しもすこしも(not) at all青少年せいしょうねんyoung people (ages 12 to 25)少なくともすくなくともat least

Example sentences

子供に少し愛情を注いで見給え、すると君におびただしい愛情が戻ってくる。

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

Tatoeba #168663

少しテレビを見てもいいですか。

Do you mind if I watch TV for a while?

Tatoeba #146856

この病気に勝てる人は少ない。

Not many survive this disease.

Tatoeba #220108

Kanji with the same radical

小尚尖

Sources: KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), KanjiVG (CC BY-SA 3.0), Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). About the data.