苦 kǔ
- Strokes
- 8
- Radical
- 艹 — grass, weed, plant, herb
- Made of
- 艹 grass, weed, plant, herb 古 old, classic, ancient
- How it's built
- Phono-semantic — one part hints at the meaning, another at the sound
苦心
kǔxīn
painstaking effort; painstakingly
Characters in this word
心 xīn
- Strokes
- 4
- Radical
- 心 — heart
- How it's built
- Pictograph — a drawing of the thing
Example phrases
- 这套课程并非随意拼凑，而是老师多年教学经验的苦心结晶。 Zhè tào kèchéng bìngfēi suíyì pīncòu, ér shì lǎoshī duōnián jiàoxué jīngyàn de kǔxīn jiéjīng. This course is not randomly cobbled together, but the painstaking product of the teacher's years of teaching experience.
- 父母的一片苦心，孩子长大以后才会明白。 Fùmǔ de yí piàn kǔxīn, háizi zhǎng dà yǐhòu cái huì míngbai. Only when children grow up will they understand their parents' earnest efforts.
- 他苦心经营这家小书店，已经十年了。 Tā kǔxīn jīngyíng zhè jiā xiǎo shūdiàn, yǐjīng shí nián le. He has painstakingly run this little bookstore for ten years now.
Related words
- 痛苦 tòngkǔ pain; suffering
- 苦 kǔ bitter
- 艰苦 jiānkǔ hard; difficult
- 酸甜苦辣 suāntiánkǔlà life's joys and hardships
- 辛苦 xīnkǔ hard; tiring
- 吃苦 chīkǔ to endure hardship
- 愁眉苦脸 chóuméikǔliǎn to look worried; to pull a long face
- 何苦 hékǔ why bother; why make things hard for oneself
- 刻苦 kèkǔ hard-working; assiduous
- 苦尽甘来 kǔjìngānlái after suffering comes happiness
- 苦难 kǔnàn suffering; hardship
- 苦恼 kǔnǎo distressed; troubled