/ archives / 2004 / august / 29 /

Normally I tell people that Chinese isn’t really as hard as they think, and that characters are actually pretty easy to remember once you get the hang of it. And then something like this comes along and kicks me in the ass.

The character to the right is nàng, a verb meaning “to have a stuffy nose.” It is 36 strokes, and there is no simplified version. Unlike most extremely complicated characters, it is reasonably common, as it is used to describe a common physical condition, 齉鼻子, literally “stuffed nose.”

I sometimes wonder why I didn’t decide to study Spanish…

Update: While discussing this character with my girlfriend over lunch, she realized that she couldn’t remember how to write it either, so maybe it’s hard for more than just us poor foreign students of the language.

Update 2: Changed the tone to the correct — fourth — tone thanks to a great comment from Kang Zhuxi, below.

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