忆苦思甜 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• to view one's past as miserable and one's present as happy

Character by character

• 忆yìto remember, to reflect upon; memory
• 苦kǔbitter; hardship, suffering
• 思sīto think, to ponder, to consider; final particle
• 甜tiánsweet, sweetness

Idioms sharing a character

• 记忆犹新 jì yì yóu xīn
• 不胜其苦 bù shèng qí kǔ
• 倒悬之苦 dào xuán zhī kǔ
• 备尝辛苦 bèi cháng xīn kǔ
• 刻苦耐劳 kè kǔ nài láo
• 千辛万苦 qiān xīn wàn kǔ
• 叫苦不迭 jiào kǔ bu dié
• 叫苦连天 jiào kǔ lián tiān
• 吃苦耐劳 chī kǔ nài láo
• 同甘共苦 tóng gān gòng kǔ

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.