Chinese Character Wiki
难

nán, nàn

difficult

Original meaning: 

type of bird

Simplified from 難. Phonosemantic compound. 隹 represents the meaning and 堇 represents the sound. The character is based on the original meaning "type of bird", which is unrelated to the modern meaning.

Components
又 simplified component

又  Simplified component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Shorthand for the 堇 component in the traditional character 難.

隹 meaning component

隹  Meaning component

zhuī

  

bird

Evolution

难 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
难 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
难 Clerical script Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
难 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
难 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

难 (難) 

nán

difficult, arduous, hard; unable; difficult (to...); problem; difficulty; difficult; not good

难 (難) 

nàn

disaster; distress; to scold

Most common words with 难
Freq.
Word
Meaning

难

problem

难道

don't tell me ...

困难

difficult

难以

hard to (predict, imagine etc)

难过

to feel sad

Component uses

Sound component in 4 characters (2 verified)

滩 摊 瘫 傩

Statistics

HSK level 1

Appears in 95.0825% of movies

250th most common character in movies

295th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Traditional

難

Unicode

U+96BE


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