忍受(rěn shòu) - to endure, to put up with in Mandarin

忍受 (rěn shòu) is to endure something unpleasant that you cannot change: pain, noise, heat, an intolerable colleague. It always takes an object, and the object is always something bad.

It lives most naturally in the negative. 不能忍受 and 无法忍受 are the everyday forms, which is why the word so often arrives in a complaint. In the positive it usually describes a long stretch of hardship already survived: 他忍受了很多年.

The trap is 忍 on its own, which means to hold something back, to swallow it. 忍住 is what you do to a laugh or a tear. 忍受 is what you do to a circumstance. Also keep 受 separate: 受 alone means to receive or suffer and needs different partners, so 受伤 is to get injured, not to endure an injury.