menor ? menos?

Question

Hola, I'd like to know in this sentence, whether we should use "menor" or not:La familia actual se ha reducido, el numero de hijos cada vez es menor? menos?Muchas Gracias!

Silvia Piriz · Accepted Answer

Hola Ziqing Z.
In this sentence, the correct option would be “menor”.
Menor is a comparative adjective meaning smaller or lower, and it is often used with things like numbers, quantities or amounts.
So your sentence would be:
La familia actual se ha reducido, el número de hijos cada vez es menor.Families have become smaller; the number of children is getting lower.
Menos, on the other hand, is usually used before nouns or verbs to mean less or fewer, for example:
Hay menos niños en la clase. (There are fewer children in the class.)
So in your sentence we use menor because we are describing the number itself.
Hope this helps!
Silvia