How can I express “at least” in the sense of “it would be worse otherwise”?

Question

How can I express "at least" in the sense of "it would be worse otherwise"? For example, "[It may be cold, but] at least it's not raining," or "[We're lost, but] at least we're together."

I sometimes want to make this kind of comment in Japanese but I haven't come across anything in my studies that seems equivalent.

Thank you!

Answer 1

You can use a very handy set phrase, 少なくとも【すくなくとも】.

少なくとも works when you talk about a quantity (you may already know this):

• 少なくとも100万円は必要です。 We need at least 1 million yen.
• 少なくとも5年は勉強しなさい。 You must study at least for 5 years.

And it also works when you talk about a situation that is better than something even worse:

• 少なくとも雨は降っていない。 At least it's not raining.
• 少なくとも何もしないよりはいい。 It's at least better than doing nothing.

As you may have noticed, the contrastive-は is often used with this expression. (は on its own can have the meaning of "at least".)

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