(nán) - difficult, hard in Mandarin

nán

Traditional: 難

#1165 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

difficult, hard

Word origin

A phono-semantic compound originally naming a bird, later borrowed for the sense of difficulty. The bird radical remains on the right.

Origin: phono-semantic compound
Root: 艮 (component) + 隹 (zhuī, short-tailed bird radical)

Stroke order

难

Examples

。

This question is very hard.

？

Is learning Chinese difficult?

。

Making this decision is hard.

，。

It is hard for those who cannot, easy for those who can.

，。

Though the days are hard, there is hope.

难 (nán) means difficult, hard. In a different tone, nàn, it means disaster, as in 灾难.

Where this fits

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Appears in 4 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 难.

难道nán dàocould it be that, don't tell me that (rhetorical)难过nán guòsad, upset, to feel unwell 困难kùn nándifficulty, hardship, difficult 难以置信nán yǐ zhì xìnunbelievable, hard to believe, incredible

Used in

Grammar articles

(12)

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难: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 24.