Emaki · all 1,500 words

辛い

つらい

difficult, harsh

Mnemonic

The same needle 辛 and the same word written the same way, except that this one is read つらい and nothing about it is spicy. It is the job, and it has been going on for months: つらい.

Worth knowing

The same characters read からい mean spicy. つらい is the one that wears you down. 難しい むずかしい is hard to work out, where this is hard to bear, the same split 苦しい くるしい makes.

Built from

spicy, harsh
A tattooing needle, the mark of a punishment. Sharp on the tongue, and hard to put up with.

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Emaki is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Kaishi 1.5k or its authors. The word, reading and meaning come from the Kaishi 1.5k deck, used with their permission. The mnemonic, the note and the kanji breakdown are original work, published under CC BY-SA 4.0.