Chinese Character Wiki
艰

jiān

difficult

Simplified form of 艱. Originally pictograph of person (卩 or 女) guarding a drum (壴) to report difficulties. Later reanalyzed as a compound of 𦰩 and 艮, which both represent the sound.

Components
又 simplified component

又  Simplified component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Shorthand for the 𦰩 component in the traditional character 艱.

艮 sound component

艮  Sound component

gěn, gèn

  

blunt

Originally written as 壴 but later reanalyzed as 艮 to represent the sound.

Evolution

艰 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
艰 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
艰 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
艰 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
艰 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
艰 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

艰 (艱) 

jiān

difficult, hard; distressing; difficult; hard; hardship

Most common words with 艰
Freq.
Word
Meaning

艰难

hard

艰苦

hard

艰辛

hardships

艰巨

arduous

艰苦奋斗

to struggle arduously

Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 17.5877% of movies

1646th most common character in movies

1647th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Traditional

艱

Unicode

U+8270


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