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Chinese Character/Word:

Definition(s) for: 苦尽甘来

Hanzi Pinyin Definition(s)
苦尽甘来 kǔ jìn gān lái - bitterness finishes, sweetness begins (idiom); the hard times are over, the good times just beginning

List Ranking:

Where rank 1 is most common, and higher numbers are less common.

HSK 2 Level (2012) HSK 3 Band (2022) SUBTLEX-CH BeijingUni Global BeijingUni Weibo
6 - 44,913 57,987 32,438

Individual Character Breakdown:

Simp Pinyin Eng
苦 kǔ- bitter
- hardship
- pain
- to suffer
- to bring suffering to
- painstakingly
尽 jǐn- to the greatest extent
- (when used before a noun of location) furthest or extreme
- to be within the limits of
- to give priority to
尽 jìn- to use up
- to exhaust
- to end
- to finish
- to the utmost
- exhausted
- finished
- to the limit (of sth)
- all
- entirely
甘 gān- surname Gan
- abbr. for Gansu Province 甘肅省|甘肃省[Gan1su4 Sheng3]
甘 gān- (bound form) sweet; pleasant (contrasted with 苦[ku3]: bitter, unpleasant)
- to be willing (to do sth)
来 lái- to come
- (used as a substitute for a more specific verb)
- hither (directional complement for motion toward the speaker, as in 回來|回来[hui2lai5])
- ever since (as in 自古以來|自古以来[zi4gu3 yi3lai2])
- for the past (amount of time)
- (prefix) the coming ...; the next ... (as in 來世|来世[lai2shi4])
- (between two verbs) in order to
- (after a round number) approximately
- (used after 得[de2] to indicate possibility, as in 談得來|谈得来[tan2de5lai2], or after 不[bu4] to indicate impossibility, as in 吃不來|吃不来[chi1bu5lai2])

Other Words Containing 苦尽甘来

Sorted by the 'SUBTLEX-CH' rank because that seems like the most reliable. Words without a SUBTLEX-CH rank are ignored for being too rare.

Word HSK 2 Level (2012) HSK 3 Band (2022) SUBTLEX-CH BeijingUni Global BeijingUni Weibo
苦尽甘来 6 - 44,913 57,987 32,438