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!
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2018-07-28T00:07:43.500
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2018-07-28T10:20:40.543
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question
grammar
How can I express "at least" in the sense of "it would be worse otherwise"?
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"](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/29438/5010).)

* * *

(I answered this question because you seem to be new to this site and it can
be seen as a focused [phrase-requests](/questions/tagged/phrase-requests "show
questions tagged 'phrase-requests'"), but please always try to include your
prior effort/research in your question. Otherwise, it may be [closed as an
effortless bulk translation
request](https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/796/what-questions-
are-not-allowed-on-japanese-language-se#799).)
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2018-07-28T10:20:40.543
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2018-07-28T10:20:40.543
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answer