a few

English

Determiner

a few

1. A small number of

Translations

A small number of

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一些 (cmn)

• Esperanto: kelkaj (eo)
• Finnish: muutama (fi), jokunen (fi)
• French: quelques (fr)
• German: einige (de), ein paar (de)
• Haitian Creole: kèk
• Hebrew: כמה (he) (kama)

• Macedonian: неколку (mk) (nékolku), малку (mk) (málku)
• Polish: kilka (pl), kilku (pl), niewiele (pl), niewielu (pl)
• Russian: не́сколько (ru) (néskolʹko) , немно́го (ru) (nemnógo) 
• Spanish: unos (es), algunos (es)
• Swedish: några (sv)
• Ukrainian: декілька (uk) (dekilka) , небагато (uk) (nebagato) 
• Yiddish: אַ פּאָר (yi) (a por)

Pronoun

a few

1. A small number of things

   Regrets, I've had a few, but then again too few to mention.

Translations

a small number of things

• Belarusian: некалькі (be) (niekalki) 
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一些 (cmn)

• Czech: několik (cs)
• Finnish: muutama (fi), jokunen (fi)
• French: quelques (fr)
• German: einige (de), wenige (de)
• Hindi: कुछ (hi) (kućh)
• Italian: pochi (it), un pò di (it)

• Polish: kilka (pl)
• Russian: не́сколько (ru) (néskolʹko) , немно́го (ru) (nemnógo) 
• Spanish: pocos (es)
• Tamil: ஒரு சில (ta) (Oru Sila)
• Telugu: కొన్ని (te) (things), కొందరు (te) (kondaru) (people)
• Ukrainian: декілька (uk) (dekilka) 
• Urdu: کُچھ (ur) (kućh)
• Yiddish: אַ פּאָר (yi) (a por)

Usage notes

"A few" and "few" without "a" differ in emphasis. "Few" emphasizes that the number is not as large as expected, while "a few" emphasizes the fact that the number, while small, is not zero but more than two.

Compare:

I was expecting lots of people at the party, but few turned up.

I wasn't expecting any young people at the party, but a few turned up.

Derived terms

• quite a few