shǎo【少】(Adjective)
Hello! From here on out I’ve decided to start learning mandarin words individually and attempting to learn the placements simply by learning single words instead of just phrases. in this section, I will write about the word shǎo【少】used as an adjective.
There will be some phrases mentioned as well, but I will not be going into excruciating detail about them.
let’s begin.
Quick note before we begin
I will now be color coating this blog close to how I’ve been color coating my notes as of late.
green will represent the english translation
red will represent important notes
yellow will represent pronunciation
pink will represent word type
blue will represent Pinyin
purple will represent the literal translation, as in the order of the words as they are organized in the symbols of the sentences.
One more note
when pronounced as SH-A-OH[shǎo] “少” means “small” but when pronounced as SH-OW[shào]，then “少” means “youth”
We will only be reviewing shǎo in this post, and subsequent ones after regarding 少.
{ADJ} shǎo;【少】 ; Few, little, scanty, less.
pronounced as 【SH-A- OH】
少 has many different meanings, which J have found to be true for most of Chinese words, they’re all around the same basis but sometimes one meaning differs from many of the others.
In the next few posts I will be going over every meaning that I have notes on. The first one is 少 when used as an adjective.
as an adjective it means few, less, etc. There will be some sentences below to better help me and you understand how exactly 少 can and should be used in certain contexts.
Sentence Examples
Two sentence examples that use 少 as the adjective described above:
Sentence Example 1
[KNEE-YENG-AI-SH-A-OH-HOO-GEEOH]
nǐ yīnggāi shǎo hējiū
你 应该 少 喝酒 。
you should drink less.
Literal translations of the symbols themselves, in the order they’re placed in the sentence.
你（nǐ）
You
应该（yīnggāi）
Should
少（shǎo）
Less
喝酒（hējiǔ）
Drink
Sentence Example 2
[ZWAY-JEEN-WOAH-MEN-HUN-SH-A-OH-GE-AN-DOW-TAH]
zuì jìn wǒ men hěn shǎo jiàn dào tā
最近 我们 很 少 见 到 他
We’ve seen very little of him lately.
嘴贱（zuìjiàn)
Lately
我们（women）
We (I and Plural)
很（hěn)
Very
少（shǎo）
Little
见到（jiàndào）
See
他（tā）
Him
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