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Ascii art less than 160 characters3/10/2024 Huáng, with its incredible 172 strokes, is generally regarded as Chinese writing’s most fiendishly difficult character. If we look beyond the simplified character system now used in mainland China, we inevitably find several more complex characters. Hardest Chinese Characters – Ancient and Traditional Chinese It will be interesting to see when the expanded HSK system is rolled out, if we will see some more complex characters appear on the HSK7-9 lists. 罐 Guàn – jar, jug, pitcher, classifier for canned objects (23 strokes)įinally we have guàn, which is the most difficult character (in terms of strokes) on the HSK vocabulary lists (HSK6). However it’s not hard to write because it is a triplication of the 直 character (zhí or straight). If we search for characters on the Frequency List with a bit more common usage, the 24-stroke character of chù is the 3,029 th most frequent. Even many well-educated Chinese won’t know this character. According to the list it is the 6,957 th common character, or very low frequency. The character with the most strokes to appear on the Modern Chinese Frequency List is yà with 35 strokes. 齾 Yà – dented, chipped, gap-toothed (35 strokes) However it is still a pretty rare character to come across, it doesn’t even appear on the Modern Chinese Frequency List of the 10,000 most common words. It comes first for most number of strokes in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters. This is because unlike the others, it is actually in modern usage. 齉 Nàng – blocked/stuffed nose (36 strokes)īecause zhé, zhèng, bèng and biáng are all problematic in the contest to be China’s hardest character, some will argue that nàng is the real winner. Note also that the traditional character has 58 strokes, and though this is the version that is always used in the restaurants, the simplified version has ‘only’ 42 strokes which is slightly less complex. Some argue the word should be classed as Shaanxi dialogue, while others believe the character is just a made-up invention by some clever Shaanxi noodle restauranteur. There are arguments that it isn’t a standard Chinese word (proof of this, there is no pinyin sound for biang). The character has a very, very specific meaning: it is used in the name of a traditional Shaanxi noodle dish. However, again there are a few issues surrounding it. Instead I will need to show an image:īiáng has attained a certain fame as the most complex Chinese character of them all. This Simplified character’s so tricky that you can’t even type it on a computer. This time it is the character for thunder, 雷or léi. 䨻 Bèng – thunderclaps (52 strokes)īèng is another long-time no-use character, and another character made up of the same four characters. The modern character for rise/flourish is 兴 which only has 6 strokes (for a total of 24), and dragon (龙) only has 5 (a measly total of 20 strokes), so hardly contenders for the longest Chinese character. ![]() And you’d think if the two characters were to make a sudden and unexpected reappearance into modern Chinese, then they would each use the simplified character multiplied by four. Likewise “zhèng” is a quadruplicated character based on the traditional character for rise or flourish, 興 (xīng). ![]() “Zhé” is just the traditional character for dragon, 龍 (long), written four times (this is known as a quadruplicated character). ![]() And thirdly, are they really so complex? Look closely at both characters. Secondly, as they haven’t been in use for thousands of years, you’re not going to come across them in your reading. Firstly, they are actually traditional characters that just don’t have simplified versions (because they haven’t been used for thousands of years). However there are three problems with declaring them Simplified Chinese’s most complex characters. Zhé and zhèng both have 64 strokes which puts them at equal top on the list of Simplified Chinese’s hardest characters to write. Here is a list of the most difficult Chinese characters, first in Simplified Chinese and then in Traditional and ancient Chinese, plus a couple of bonus characters for fun. One of the most rewarding aspects of studying Chinese is learning about their rich and fascinating writing system.
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