难 (nán): difficult

Meanings

1 difficult
2 problem
3 difficulty
4 not good

Characters

难

nán

difficult; hard

Examples

中文难吗？

Zhōngwén nán?

Is Chinese difficult?

这道题很难。

Zhè dào tí hěn nán.

This question is very difficult.

汉字不难写。

Hànzì bù nán xiě.

Chinese characters aren't hard to write.

Tips

grammar

难 + verb forms an adjective meaning 'hard to V': 难学 (hard to learn), 难说 (hard to say), 难吃 (bad-tasting, lit. hard to eat), 难看 (ugly, lit. hard to look at).

mistakes

难 has a second reading 难 (falling tone), meaning 'disaster, calamity'. Use nán for 'difficult' compounds (困难, 难过) and nàn for 'disaster' compounds (灾难, 难民).

Components

radical

又 yòu

right hand; again

Left indexing radical 又 - a stylised right hand, two strokes. In simplified 难 this 又 is a graphic substitute for the original left side (a complex bird-and-clay shape in traditional 難). It became the indexing radical when the simplified form was standardised in the 1956 reform.

phonetic

隹 zhuī

short-tailed bird

Right 隹 - a pictograph of a short-tailed bird (the long-tailed counterpart is 鳥). Originally supplied the meaning 'a particular bird with hard-to-catch feathers'; over time 难 generalised to 'difficult, hard.' Same phonetic family includes 雄 (male), 雅 (elegant), 集 (gather).