HSK 6 · Adjectives

贪婪 tānlán “greedy” in Chinese

Traditional 貪婪

What 贪婪 means

  1. greedy
  2. avaricious
  3. rapacious
  4. insatiable
  5. avid

How to say 贪婪

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale贪tān1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale婪lán2nd tone, rising

贪婪 in a sentence

  1. 我不贪婪。

    Wǒ bù tānlán.

    I’m not greedy.

    Sentence #6333811 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 贪婪 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 贪 (tān) with each of its parts in a different colour
贪tānto have a voracious desire for
  • 今modern · jīnSound part
  • 贝sea shell · bèiMeaning part

贝 hints at the meaning (sea shell); 今 (jīn) hints at the sound. Compare it with tān.

The character 婪 (lán) with each of its parts in a different colour
婪lánavaricious
  • 林forest · línSound part
  • 女woman · nǚMeaning part

女 hints at the meaning (woman); 林 (lín) hints at the sound. Compare it with lán.

How to write 贪婪

贪 8 strokes · 婪 11 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

贪婪 (tānlán) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 贪婪 (tānlán). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 贪婪

Words with 贪

贪污tānwū · to embezzle

More words: Adjectives

肆无忌惮sìwújìdàn · unrestrained私自sīzì · privately随意suíyì · as one likes坦白tǎnbái · frank踏实tāshi · down-to-earth特定tèdìng · specific天生tiānshēng · innate挑剔tiāoti · fussy

FAQs

贪婪 (tānlán) means “greedy” or “avaricious”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it tānlán: tān with a 1st tone, then lán with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 贪婪 is written 貪婪. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type tanlan with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 贪婪 from the suggestions. Typing tanlan into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
贪婪 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.