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苦尽甘来

kǔ jìn gān lái

Old HSK 6 HSK 3.0 level 7-9 4-character word Traditional 苦盡甘來

苦尽甘来 (kǔ jìn gān lái) means "bitterness finishes, sweetness begins (idiom); the hard times are over, the good times just beginning". It is an HSK 3.0 level 7-9 word, and was HSK 6 in the old six-level list.

What 苦尽甘来 means

1. bitterness finishes, sweetness begins (idiom); the hard times are over, the good times just beginning

The characters in 苦尽甘来

• 苦kǔbitter; hardship; pain
• 尽jìnto use up; to exhaust; to end
• 甘gān(bound form) sweet; pleasant (contrasted with 苦; to be willing (to do sth)
• 来láito come; (used as a substitute for a more specific verb)…

Example sentences

• 苦尽甘来。
  Kǔ jìn gān lái.
  No sweet without sweat.

Where 苦尽甘来 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of HSK 6 Vocabulary · kuà–kū (HSK 6), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 6 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read kǔ jìn gān lái correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.