Meaning of 艰难
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- difficult; arduous; hard
How to use 艰难
艰难 describes hard situations, times, or journeys, often in a serious or written tone, rather than a hard exam question. It often appears in phrases like 艰难的选择 (a tough choice) or 生活艰难 (life is hard). Example: 那几年他们的生活很艰难。(Nà jǐ nián tāmen de shēnghuó hěn jiānnán.) Those few years their life was very hard.
Both characters carry the idea of hardship: 艰 (jiān) means hard or arduous, and 难 (nán) is the everyday word for difficult. Put two kinds of "hard" together and you get a heavy, serious difficulty.
Common mistake: Learners often use 艰难 for simple tasks, like saying a homework problem is 艰难. For ordinary difficulty use 难 (nán) or 困难 (kùnnan), and keep 艰难 for real hardship. Also remember 难 here is second tone, nán, not the fourth-tone nàn found in 灾难 (zāinàn, disaster).
艰难 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
艰 jiān · difficult · 8 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
难 nán · difficult · 10 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
Related words
Words that share a character with 艰难.
| 难过 | nánguò | to feel sad; to feel unwell |
| 难受 | nánshòu | to feel unwell; to suffer pain |
| 难看 | nánkàn | ugly; unsightly |
| 难题 | nántí | difficult problem |
| 难听 | nántīng | unpleasant to hear; coarse |
| 难道 | nándào | don't tell me ...; could it be that...? |
| 困难 | kùnnan | difficult; challenging |
| 难度 | nándù | degree of difficulty |
| 难免 | nánmiǎn | hard to avoid; difficult to escape from |
| 灾难 | zāinàn | disaster; catastrophe |
| 难以 | nányǐ | hard to (predict, imagine etc) |
| 难得 | nándé | seldom; rare |
Questions about 艰难
What does 艰难 mean?
艰难 (jiānnán) means "difficult; arduous; hard" and is used as a adjective.
How do you write 艰难?
艰难 is made of 2 characters: 艰 (8 strokes), 难 (10 strokes). That is 18 strokes in total.
Is 艰难 an HSK word?
Yes. 艰难 is on the HSK 5 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
How is 艰难 written in traditional Chinese?
In traditional characters, 艰难 is written 艱難.
What is the difference between 艰难 and 困难?
困难 (kùnnan) is more general and can be a noun, as in 遇到困难 (to run into difficulties). 艰难 is mainly an adjective and sounds heavier, stressing struggle and suffering.
Can 艰难 be used before a verb?
Yes, it can describe how an action is done, often with 地. For example, 他艰难地站了起来 (Tā jiānnán de zhàn le qǐlái) means he struggled to stand up.