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Kotomora

難

difficult, impossible, trouble, accident, defect

JLPTN3StatusJōyō · grade 6FrequencyTop 500Strokes18

Readings

On'yomi

  • ナン

Kun'yomi

  • かた.い
  • -がた.い
  • むずか.しい
  • むづか.しい
  • むつか.しい
  • -にく.い

Nanori

  • な
  • なに

Meaning

難 centers on things being hard to do or deal with: difficulty, trouble, accidents, and defects. The sense of 'impossible' is an extreme degree of difficulty.

Most common words using 難

24 of 315
  • 有難うありがとう
    N4

    thank you; thanks

  • 難しいむずかしい
    N5

    difficult; hard; troublesome; complicated; serious (disease, problem, etc.)

  • 困難こんなん
    N3

    difficulty; hardship; trouble; distress

  • 避難ひなん
    N2

    taking refuge; finding shelter; evacuation; escape; seeking safe haven

  • 有難いありがたい
    N2

    grateful; thankful; welcome; appreciated; evoking gratitude

  • 非難ひなん
    N2

    criticism; blame; censure; attack; reproach

  • 難易なんい
    N1

    (relative) difficulty

  • 難なん
    N1

    difficulty; trouble; hardship; shortage

  • 難いかたい
    N1

    difficult; hard

  • 難民なんみん
    N1

    refugee; displaced person

  • 難波なにわ

    Naniwa (former name for Osaka region)

  • 無難ぶなん
    N2

    safe (e.g. choice); secure; innocuous; inoffensive

  • 盗難とうなん
    N2

    theft; robbery

  • 遭難そうなん
    N1

    (meeting with) disaster; (having an) accident; mishap; shipwreck; distress

  • 難点なんてん
    N1

    fault; weakness; flaw; defect; drawback; disadvantage

  • 難病なんびょう

    serious disease; intractable disease; difficult-to-recover-from illness

  • 難聴なんちょう

    hardness of hearing; bradyacusia; deafness; hearing loss

  • 難関なんかん
    N1

    barrier; obstacle; difficulty; hurdle; deadlock

  • 難解なんかい
    N1

    difficult to understand; unintelligible; abstruse

  • 災難さいなん
    N2

    calamity; misfortune; disaster

  • 苦難くなん

    suffering; distress; hardship; trial

  • 難題なんだい

    difficult problem; challenge

  • 難航なんこう
    N1

    difficult voyage; stormy passage; hard flight

  • 難問なんもん
    N1

    perplexity; difficult question; difficult problem

Explore all words using 難 →

Study

Etymology

難 is a phono-semantic compound. The left side originally depicted a bird with a crest, and the right side 隹 is a short-tailed bird. Together they expressed the idea of a bird being caught or in difficulty, later extended to general hardship.

Meaning mnemonic

The left side looks like a tangled mess, and the right side 隹 is a bird. Imagine a bird caught in a net or thorny bush, struggling and finding it difficult to escape.

Reading mnemonic

For ナン, imagine a difficult situation where you have no bread, only naan: naan -> ナン, and the difficulty is that you're stuck with just flatbread.