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艱苦

简艰苦 · 繁艱苦

Mandarin · pinyin jiān kǔ

difficult
hard
arduous

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Characters in this entry

艱: Look up this written character
苦: kǔ · bitter; hardship, suffering
艰: jiān · difficult, hard; distressing

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–3 · jian1 ku3

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

艱苦 · find source passages ↗ · 艰苦 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 5 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gaan1 fu2

Cantonese word readings for 艱苦. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

adj

arduous; laborious
(Hokkien, Teochew) difficult; hard
(Hokkien, Teochew) agonizing; hard to bear; unwell
(Hokkien) poor; impoverished

verb

(Xiamen, Quanzhou and Taiwanese Hokkien) to fall ill; to be ill

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack