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On’yomiなん
Kun’yomiかたい・むずかしい
19 strokes Name kanji Radical short tailed bird
書き順 · Stroke order

How to write 難

Stroke order is not decoration — it determines how the character looks handwritten and how dictionaries index it.

19 strokes
分解 · What it is made of

The parts of 難

Almost every kanji is built from a small set of reusable parts. Learn the parts once and you stop memorising thousands of unrelated shapes.

radical bird =
this kanji
部首 · Radical

The radical of 難

Radical 172 of 214
Short tailed bird

The radical is the part a paper dictionary files a kanji under, and it usually hints at meaning. 難 is filed under (short tailed bird) — radical number 172 of the 214 in the Kangxi system.

Other kanji built on 隹

練習 · Practice

Drill 難 right now

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なん かたい・むずかしい
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熟語 · In real words

Words that use 難

Kanji are almost never met alone. These are the most common words built from this character, ordered by how often they actually appear in Japanese.

難民 なんみん refugee; displaced person; person inconvenienced by (lack of something, etc.)
困難 こんなん difficulty; hardship; trouble
避難 ひなん taking refuge; finding shelter; evacuation
非難 ひなん criticism; blame; censure
批難 ひなん criticism; blame; censure
難色 なんしょく disapproval; reluctance; unwillingness
避難民 ひなんみん evacuees; displaced persons; refugees
難しい むずかしい difficult; hard; troublesome
難問 なんもん perplexity; difficult question; difficult problem
難航 なんこう difficult voyage; stormy passage; hard flight
同音 · Sound-alikes

Kanji that sound like 難

Japanese has far more kanji than syllables, so one reading is shared by many characters. These are the ones you will confuse with 難 — learn them together, not separately.

画数 · 19 strokes

Other 19-stroke kanji

Useful when looking a character up by stroke count — and a common source of visual mix-ups.

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質問 · Questions

About the kanji 難

How do you read the kanji 難?

難 is read on'yomi (Chinese-derived) なん; kun'yomi (native Japanese) かたい、むずかしい.

How many strokes does 難 have?

難 is written with 19 strokes. The animated diagram on this page shows the correct order.

What level is the kanji 難?

Japanese schoolchildren learn it in name kanji.

What is the radical of 難?

The radical of 難 is 隹 (short tailed bird), radical number 172 of the 214 Kangxi radicals. The radical is the component a dictionary files the character under, and it usually points at the character's meaning.

What words use the kanji 難?

Common words written with 難 include 難民 (なんみん, refugee; displaced person; person inconvenienced by (lack of something, etc.)); 困難 (こんなん, difficulty; hardship; trouble); 避難 (ひなん, taking refuge; finding shelter; evacuation).

Which kanji sound the same as 難?

難 shares a reading with 男 (なん), 南 (なん), 軟 (なん), 楠 (なん), among others. Same-sounding kanji are one of the most common sources of confusion in Japanese.

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