Chinese symbol for “difficult”
难
nán
Traditional: 難
difficult (to...); problem; difficulty; difficult
The closest CC-CEDICT match for difficult is 难 (nán), defined as: difficult (to...); problem; difficulty; difficult; not good.
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 “difficult”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 困难 (困難) | kùn nan | difficult; challenging |
| 艰难 (艱難) | jiān nán | difficult; arduous; hard |
| 艰苦 (艱苦) | jiān kǔ | difficult; hard |
| 艰 (艱) | jiān | difficult; hard |
| 难缠 (難纏) | nán chán | (usu. of people) difficult; demanding |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 难.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 难民 (難民) | nàn mín | refugee |
| 灾难 (災難) | zāi nàn | disaster; catastrophe |
See also: Japanese symbol for “difficult”.
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.