adverbial N4 common casualpolitewritten
ほとんど — almost / mostly
ほとんど
Meaning
- almost / nearly / most of — close to the whole, but not quite all
Key sentence
宿題はほとんど終わった。
I've almost finished my homework.
Usage
Modifies a verb/adjective directly (ほとんど終わった), or marks a quantity as ほとんどの + noun (ほとんどの人 = 'most people').
Examples
ほとんどの学生が試験に合格した。
Almost all the students passed the exam.
ケーキをほとんど食べてしまった。
I ate almost the whole cake.
二人の答えはほとんど同じだ。
Their two answers are almost identical.
Easily confused with
Notes
- Paired with a negative (ほとんど〜ない) it means 'hardly / almost never' — see the linked entry.
See ほとんど in real sentences
Jengo shows ほとんど the way you actually meet it: inside real Japanese sentences, so it sticks instead of staying an abstract rule.
Study it in JengoSources Compiled from published Japanese grammar references.