HSK 6 · Adjectives

贫乏 pínfá “lacking” in Chinese

Traditional 貧乏

What 贫乏 means

  1. lacking
  2. poor
  3. meagre
  4. impoverished
  5. deficient
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • limited
  • meager
  • impoverishment

How to say 贫乏

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale贫pín2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale乏fá2nd tone, rising

贫乏 in a sentence

  1. 日本自然资源贫乏。

    Rìběn zìrán zīyuán pínfá.

    Japan is poor in natural resources.

    Sentence #343934 from Tatoeba

How 贫乏 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 贫 (pín) with each of its parts in a different colour
贫pínpoor
  • 分to divide · fēn
  • 贝sea shell · bèi
The character 乏 (fá) with each of its parts in a different colour
乏fáshort of
  • 丿slash · piě
  • 之marks preceding phrase as modifier of following phrase · zhī

How to write 贫乏

贫 8 strokes · 乏 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 贫乏

Words with 贫

贫困pínkùn · poor

Words with 乏

缺乏quēfá · to lack

More words: Adjectives

拿手náshǒu · good at内在nèizài · inner浓厚nónghòu · strong庞大pángdà · huge频繁pínfán · frequent平凡píngfán · ordinary平坦píngtǎn · flat平行píngxíng · parallel

FAQs

贫乏 (pínfá) means “lacking” or “poor”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it pínfá: pín with a 2nd tone, then fá 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, 贫乏 is written 貧乏. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type pinfa with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 贫乏 from the suggestions. Typing pinfa into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
贫乏 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

Turn words into conversations

A dictionary gives you the words. A native teacher shows you how to use them. Start with a free 30-minute intro call.

Book a free intro call

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.