HSK 4 · Verbs

敢 gǎn “to dare” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 敢 means

  1. to dare
  2. daring
  3. (polite) may I venture

How to say 敢

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale敢gǎn3rd tone, dipping

敢 in a sentence

  1. 我不敢走在前面，太黑了。

    Wǒ bù gǎn zǒu zài qiánmiàn, tài hēi le.

    I don’t dare walk in front – it’s too dark.

    Sentence #934268 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 你怎么敢笑我？

    Nǐ zěnme gǎn xiào wǒ?

    How dare you laugh at me!

    Sentence #1021017 from Tatoeba

  3. 他很害羞，都不敢和女孩子说话。

    Tā hěn hàixiū, dōu bù gǎn hé nǚháizi shuōhuà.

    He is too shy to talk to girls.

    Sentence #1883092 from Tatoeba

How 敢 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 敢 (gǎn) drawn as one shape
敢gǎnto dare

敢 is a single shape of 11 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

How to write 敢

敢 11 strokes

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

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

Words related to 敢

Words with 敢

勇敢yǒnggǎn · brave不敢当bùgǎndāng · I don’t deserve such praise

More words: Thinking & Talking

道歉dàoqiàn · to apologise打招呼dǎzhāohu · to say hello对话duìhuà · dialogue反对fǎnduì · to oppose感觉gǎnjué · feeling感谢gǎnxiè · (express) thanks怀疑huáiyí · to doubt回忆huíyì · to recall

FAQs

敢 (gǎn) means “to dare” or “daring”. It is an HSK 4 word.
Say it gǎn: gǎn with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 敢 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type gan with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 敢 from the suggestions. Typing gan into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
敢 is an HSK 4 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.