Chinese symbol for “arduous”
艰难
jiān nán
Traditional: 艱難
difficult; arduous; hard
The closest CC-CEDICT match for arduous is 艰难 (jiān nán), defined as: difficult; arduous; hard.
Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.
Characters and stroke order
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “arduous”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 辛苦 | xīn kǔ | exhausting; hard |
| 艰苦 (艱苦) | jiān kǔ | difficult; hard |
| 艰辛 (艱辛) | jiān xīn | hardships; arduous |
| 繁重 | fán zhòng | heavy; burdensome |
| 吃重 | chī zhòng | (of a role) arduous; important |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 艰难.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 艰苦 (艱苦) | jiān kǔ | difficult; hard |
| 艰辛 (艱辛) | jiān xīn | hardships; arduous |
| 艰巨 (艱巨) | jiān jù | variant of 艰巨 (jiān jù) |
| 艰苦奋斗 (艱苦奮鬥) | jiān kǔ fèn dòu | to struggle arduously |
| 困难 (困難) | kùn nan | difficult; challenging |
| 难道 (難道) | nán dào | don't tell me ...; could it be that...? |
| 难以 (難以) | nán yǐ | hard to (predict, imagine etc) |
| 难过 (難過) | nán guò | to feel sad; to feel unwell |
See also: Japanese symbol for “arduous”.
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.