恨 (hèn) · to hate; to detest

Meanings

1 to hate; to detest
2 to regret; to resent

Characters

恨

hèn

to hate; to regret

Examples

HSK 2

我恨自己为什么没有早点开始。

Wǒ hèn zìjǐ wèishénme méiyǒu zǎodiǎn kāishǐ.

I hate myself for not starting earlier.

HSK 5

她恨他骗了自己。

Tā hèn tā piàn le zìjǐ.

She hates him for deceiving her.

HSK 5

相爱容易相恨也容易。

Xiāng'ài róngyì xiāng hèn yě róngyì.

It's easy to love each other and easy to hate each other.

Tips

usage

恨不得 = "to wish desperately that…" - 我恨不得马上飞过去 (I desperately wish I could fly there right now).

memory

恨 has 心 (heart) on the left - hatred lives in the heart.

Components

radical

忄 xīn

heart (left-side radical form of 心)

The heart radical - the left-side compressed form of 心. Anchors 恨 in the family of feeling-words: 怕 (fear), 快 (happy), 慢 (slow), 怀 (cherish), 悔 (regret). The compressed form appears on the left of characters; the full 心 appears at the bottom of others.

phonetic

艮 gèn

still; stubborn (here phonetic + faint semantic)

Provides the sound (gěn to hèn). 艮 is the I Ching trigram for mountain - solid, immovable. The stubborn, immovable imagery resonates faintly with hatred: a feeling that won't budge. Same phonetic family as 根 (root), 跟 (heel), 银 (silver).