Japanese Words for Quantities and Amounts: Takusan, Sukoshi, Zenbu, Hotondo

A lot: takusan, ippai, ōku, ōzei

Takusan is the general word for a lot, and it works for anything countable or not: takusan tabemashita, I ate a lot; hon ga takusan arimasu, there are lots of books. It sits before the verb like an adverb, or before a noun with no. Ippai means the same in casual speech and has a second sense of full, so onaka ga ippai is a full stomach and kōhī o ippai is one cup of coffee, where ippai is the counter for cups. Context separates them.

Ōku is the adverbial form of ōi, numerous, and it is a little more formal: ōku no hito, many people, is standard in news and writing. Ōzei is the word for a crowd of people and never for things: eki ni hito ga ōzei imashita, the station was crowded with people. Tappuri is generous, plenty, for portions and time: sōsu tappuri, plenty of sauce.

A little: sukoshi, chotto, tashō, wazuka

Sukoshi and chotto both mean a little, and in front of a verb they are interchangeable: sukoshi tabemasu, chotto tabemasu. Sukoshi is the one you write and the one you use in a polite request; chotto is the one you say to friends, and it doubles as the all-purpose softener that turns a refusal into a hesitation. Mō sukoshi and mō chotto mean a little more, and are the phrases for asking a cook to go easy or a shopkeeper to add one or two.

Tashō is somewhat or to some extent, a measured word for reports and self-assessment: Nihongo wa tashō hanasemasu, I can speak some Japanese. Wazuka is only a little, slightly, and it stresses how small the amount is: wazuka na chigai, a slight difference. Sukunai is the adjective for few or little, the partner of ōi, and works as a predicate: hito ga sukunai, there are few people. Before a noun it needs a twist, sukunai hito is awkward, so speakers say hito ga sukunai or sukoshi no hito.

All, most and half: zenbu, hotondo, hanbun

The share words describe part of a whole the listener already knows about. Zenbu is all of it: zenbu tabemashita, I ate all of it. Minna also means all, but leans toward people, so minna kimashita is everyone came. Hotondo is most or almost all: hotondo owarimashita, it is almost finished. With a negative, hotondo flips to hardly any: hotondo tabemasen, I hardly eat any. Hanbun is half, and it is a noun, so it takes no before a noun and ni after it as a target: hanbun ni kiru, cut in half.

Two more sit between: daibubun is the greater part, a shade more formal than hotondo, and ichibu is a part, some of it. Nokori is the rest or the leftovers, the word for the half of the pizza you take home. Each of these can be the topic of a sentence with wa: nokori wa ashita tabemasu.

Ordering and shopping amounts

In a shop or restaurant, the quantity words replace numbers whenever the exact figure does not matter. At a market you can hold out a bag and say kore gurai, about this much, or sukoshi ōme ni, a bit on the generous side. Ōme and sukuname, the me forms of ōi and sukunai, are the words for adjusting a portion: gohan wa ōme de, extra rice; kōri wa sukuname de, less ice. Nuki, without, removes something altogether: wasabi nuki de.

The counters this post skips are still there when you need them, and a related post on this site covers them properly. But a learner who knows ōme, sukuname, hanbun and zenbu can get through a supermarket, a café and an izakaya without one. When a shop asks how many, ikutsu, and you do not know the counter, kore o mittsu, three of these, using the generic tsu counter is always accepted.

Crowds, portions and the people rule

Describing a crowd is where the people-versus-things split shows most. Hito ga ōi, there are many people, is the plain statement; ōzei adds the sense of a throng; konde iru, crowded, is what you say about the place itself. For the opposite, suite iru means uncrowded, the word for a quiet train, and gara-gara is nearly empty. A full restaurant is manseki, all seats taken, and a full train is manin.

Portions have their own scale. Tappuri is generous, ōme is a bit more, futsū is normal, sukuname is a bit less, and hon no sukoshi is a token amount. A dish that is too much to finish is ōsugiru, and one that leaves you hungry is sukunasugiru or, more politely, mono tarinai, not quite enough. When you leave food, the polite explanation is onaka ga ippai de, because I am full, which brings ippai back in its other sense.

Quantity words at a glance

The first table collects the words for large and small amounts. The reading column gives the romaji; most of these are written in kanji, though takusan and ippai often appear in hiragana.

Shares, negatives and sentence position

The second table covers the share words and the words that need a negative. After it, the list explains where each kind of word goes in the sentence, which is the part learners get wrong most.

• Before the verb, no particle: takusan tabemasu, sukoshi matte, zenbu yomimashita
• Before a noun, add no: takusan no hon, ōzei no hito, hotondo no gakusei
• After the noun and its particle, as a floating quantifier: hon o takusan yomimashita
• Hanbun and ichibu take ni as a target: hanbun ni wakeru, split in half
• Ōme and sukuname take ni or de when ordering: ōme ni, sukuname de
• Amari, zenzen and mettani must be followed by a negative: amari shirimasen
• Zenbu de and minna de mean in total or all together: zenbu de sen en

The floating pattern, noun plus particle plus quantity word plus verb, is the most natural in speech and the one to copy.

Common mistakes with amounts

The first mistake is ōi before a noun. Ōi hito and sukunai hito sound wrong; say hito ga ōi as a predicate, or ōku no hito and takusan no hito before the noun. This is the most frequent slip with quantity words.

The second is amari with a positive verb. Amari tabemasu is not I eat a lot; it is unfinished, and a listener waits for the negative. Say takusan tabemasu for a lot and amari tabemasen for not much. The same holds for zenzen, which only takes a positive in the slang sense of zenzen daijōbu, totally fine.

The third is ōzei for things and takusan for a specific crowd size when you want the throng feeling. Hon ga ōzei arimasu will get a smile; hon ga takusan arimasu is right. When you truly need a number, say it: kore gurai works with a gesture, but futatsu works everywhere.