VocabularyJLPT N5 · core

多い

おおい

hepburn ooi

many, much, numerous

Part of speech · i-adjective

Pattern visualization

多many

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Numbers6 strokes · 4.1s

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Examples

人が多い駅です。
A station with many people.
宿題が多すぎる。
There is too much homework.

Collocations

多い (ooi, many)少ない (sukunai, few)人が多い (hito ga ooi, many people)〜が多い (~ga ooi, many of X)多く (ooku, many adverbial)

Mnemonic

Ooi (多い) is the i-adjective for "many / numerous." The kanji 多 stacks two 夕 (evening) to picture nights piling up — "many." Paired with sukunai (少ない, few). Trap: ooi cannot directly modify a noun as in "ooi hito" (many person) — that is ungrammatical. The natural patterns are "hito ga ooi" (people are many) for predicative use or "ooku no hito" (many people, with the ooku no transform) for attributive use. Reason: ooi is restricted to predicative slots; like a few other Japanese i-adjectives it does not function attributively. Common collocations: jinkou ga ooi (the population is large), yuki ga ooi (there is a lot of snow). Korean shares the kanji 多 with reading da; Chinese duo / hen duo. JLPT N5 learners must memorize the ooku no attributive transform.

Quick check

Correct Japanese for "many people"?