不难
bunán · HSK 7
Not difficult
👍 bù nán = not + hard — say BOO to what's NONE too tough
Break it down: 不 (bù) means not, 难 (nán) means difficult. Together they flip the difficulty switch off. The sounds bù-nán echo BOO-NONE — nothing to fear here.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
难 — 又 (right hand) + 隹 (short-tailed bird)
Originally written with 堇 (clay) plus 隹 (bird), 難 depicted a rare bird and was borrowed to mean 'difficult.' The modern simplified form replaces the left side with 又 (hand). The phonetic role of the original left component gave the reading nán.