How to Use 几 (jǐ) in Chinese

Last week, in an online one-on-one lesson, a student asked me, “What’s the difference between 几 and 多少? Don’t they both ask about numbers?”

I usually don’t answer with “几 is for small numbers, and 多少 is for large numbers.” It sounds neat, but it can quickly lead to mistakes like 几钱 and 几学生.

Instead, I start with two basic ideas:

1. You don’t know the number, so you ask with 几.
2. You don’t give an exact number, so 几 can mean “a few” or “several.”

Once students understand those two ideas, the rest becomes much easier.

几 asks how many, but it usually needs a measure word

The first use is the familiar one: asking about a number.

你有几本书？
How many books do you have?

你有几个学生？
How many students do you have?

你喝几杯咖啡？
How many cups of coffee do you drink?

Notice the pattern:

几 + measure word + noun

For example:

• 几本书
• 几支笔
• 几个学生
• 几杯咖啡
• 几件衣服

You normally can't put 几 directly before the noun:

❌ 几书
❌ 几苹果
❌ 几学生

Instead:

✅ 几本书
✅ 几个苹果
✅ 几个学生

There are also many common expressions that are best learned as whole phrases:

几天
几年
几岁
几点
几号
几月
几楼
几班

For example:

你几点上课？
What time do you have class?

你住几楼？
Which floor do you live on?

今天几号？
What date is it today?

When 几 is used to ask about a number, it usually suggests a relatively small quantity. For beginners, you can roughly think of it as “around ten or fewer,” but I wouldn't make that a strict rule.

For example:

你有几个哥哥？ sounds natural because we normally expect someone to have a small number of older brothers.

But:

你们学校有几个学生？

sounds strange if the school has thousands of students. In that situation, 你们学校有多少学生？ is more natural.

At the same time, 几 can appear with much larger approximate numbers:

• 几十个人
• 几百块钱
• 几千名学生
• 几万册书

For example:

来了几十个人。
Dozens of people came.

这本书卖了几万册。
This book sold tens of thousands of copies.

Here, 几 is not asking “how many?” It gives an approximate number.

So I wouldn't teach students that 几 always means a number under ten. It's better to think of it as often suggesting a relatively small quantity, while also being used in expressions such as 几十, 几百, and 几万.

几 can also mean “a few” or “several”

This is the other important use.

You are not asking for a number. You're talking about an approximate quantity without giving the exact number.

我买了几个苹果。
I bought a few apples.

他过几天来。
He'll come in a few days.

我有几个问题想问你。
I have a few questions to ask you.

Compare these two:

你买了几个苹果？
How many apples did you buy?

我买了几个苹果。
I bought a few apples.

The word 几 is the same. What changes is what you're doing with it.

In the first sentence, you're asking for the number.

In the second, you're referring to an approximate number.

You’ll also hear some very common expressions:

没几个 — not many
就几个 — just a few
好几个 — quite a few / several

For example:

教室里没几个人。
There aren't many people in the classroom.

我只有几个问题。
I only have a few questions.

我已经看过好几次了。
I've already seen it several times.

Time, dates, age, and order

You’ll see 几 all the time in everyday expressions about time, dates, age, and order:

几点？
What time?

今天几号？
What date is it today?

星期几？
What day of the week is it?

几月几号？
What month and date?

你几月来中国？
Which month are you coming to China?

你住几楼？
Which floor do you live on?

坐几号线？
Which subway line do you take?

这是第几课？
Which lesson is this?

For beginners, I think it's more useful to learn these as chunks than to stop and analyze the grammar behind each one.

Age needs a little care.

你几岁了？ is perfectly normal when talking to a child.

But with an adult, especially an older person, 你几岁？ can sound unnatural or even impolite. Safer options are:

您多大年纪？
How old are you?

or:

您多大？
How old are you?

Prices are another common place where beginners use 几 incorrectly.

❌ 几钱？

Use:

✅ 多少钱？

For example:

这个多少钱？
How much is this?

一杯咖啡多少钱？
How much is a cup of coffee?

For phone numbers, 多少 is also normally used:

你的电话号码是多少？
What's your phone number?

But for room numbers, floors, and subway lines, 几 is common:

你住几号房？
Which room are you staying in?

你住几楼？
Which floor do you live on?

你坐几号线？
Which subway line do you take?

So what's the difference between 几 and 多少?

The common explanation is:

几 = small number
多少 = large number

It's a useful starting point, but it's not a complete rule.

A better way to think about it is that 几 often suggests a relatively small quantity or appears in common expressions, while 多少 has a wider range and is often used when the quantity could be large or is more open-ended.

Compare:

你有几个哥哥？
How many older brothers do you have?

你们学校有多少学生？
How many students are there at your school?

Or:

今天几号？
What date is it today?

这件衣服多少钱？
How much does this piece of clothing cost?

And:

你几点上课？
What time do you have class?

你每天工作多少小时？
How many hours do you work every day?

There is also a simple structural difference worth knowing.

多少 can often stand on its own:

你要多少？
How many / how much do you want?

有多少？
How many are there? / How much is there?

But 几 normally appears as part of a larger expression:

几个
几本
几天
几年
几点
几岁
第几

So:

你有几个？ is fine.

But:

❌ 你有几？

is not natural.

Even here, though, I wouldn't try to turn the difference into a strict formula. Both of these can be natural:

你工作几个小时？
你工作多少小时？

The first may suggest a relatively small or expected number of hours, while the second is more open-ended. The context matters.

What I do in online one-on-one lessons

When I teach 几, I don't start with a long grammar explanation. I use things the student can actually see and talk about on screen.

I might share a slide with several books and ask:

几本书？

Then I switch to pens:

几支笔？

Then we look at a simple schedule:

几点？
星期几？
几号？

We can also do short role-plays:

• asking a child how old they are
• asking which floor someone lives on
• asking which lesson someone is studying
• asking how many siblings someone has
• asking how many days someone will stay

If a student types 几钱 in the chat, I don't give a long lecture. I simply correct it:

多少钱。

Then they use it again in a full sentence.

For me, this is usually more useful than giving students a long list of grammar rules. They need to hear the pattern, use it, make a mistake, get corrected, and use it again.

One small pronunciation note

When 几 is used for numbers, quantities, time, age, and similar expressions, it is pronounced jǐ:

几个 — jǐ ge
几天 — jǐ tiān
几点 — jǐ diǎn
几岁 — jǐ suì

But in 几乎 (jīhū), meaning “almost,” it is pronounced jī.

So don't assume that every 几 you see has the same pronunciation.

Don't learn 几 as just “how many”

If you're learning Mandarin, I wouldn't recommend memorizing 几 = how many and stopping there.

It's more useful to remember the two basic ideas:

You don't know the number → 几 can ask for it.

You don't give an exact number → 几 can refer to an approximate quantity.

Then build useful chunks around them:

几本书
几个学生
几天
几点
几号
几岁
第几课
几十个人

You don't need to understand every use of 几 at once. The more you hear and use these expressions in real situations, the more natural the difference between 几 and 多少 will become.