HSK 5 · Adjectives

糟糕 zāogāo “too bad” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 糟糕 means

  1. too bad
  2. how terrible
  3. what bad luck
  4. terrible
  5. bad

How to say 糟糕

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale糟zāo1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale糕gāo1st tone, high and level

糟糕 in a sentence

  1. 多么糟糕的天气啊！

    Duōme zāogāo de tiānqì a!

    What awful weather!

    Sentence #8727951 from Tatoeba

  2. 那太糟糕了。

    Nà tài zāogāo le.

    That’s too bad.

    Sentence #826217 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 你看起来很糟糕。

    Nǐ kànqǐlai hěn zāogāo.

    You look terrible.

    Sentence #8932087 from Tatoeba

How 糟糕 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 糟 (zāo) with each of its parts in a different colour
糟zāodregs
  • 米rice · mǐMeaning part
  • 曹ministers · cáoSound part

米 hints at the meaning (rice); 曹 (cáo) hints at the sound. Compare it with zāo.

The character 糕 (gāo) with each of its parts in a different colour
糕gāocake
  • 米rice · mǐMeaning part
  • 羔lamb · gāoSound part

米 hints at the meaning (rice); 羔 (gāo) hints at the sound. Compare it with gāo.

How to write 糟糕

糟 17 strokes · 糕 16 strokes

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

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

Words related to 糟糕

Words with 糟

糟蹋zāotà · to waste

Words with 糕

蛋糕dàngāo · cake

More words: Adjectives

优美yōuměi · graceful悠久yōujiǔ · long-standing有利yǒulì · advantageous圆yuán · circle窄zhǎi · narrow整齐zhěngqí · orderly真实zhēnshí · true直zhí · straight

FAQs

糟糕 (zāogāo) means “too bad” or “how terrible”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it zāogāo: zāo with a 1st tone, then gāo with a 1st tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 糟糕 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type zaogao with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 糟糕 from the suggestions. Typing zaogao into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
糟糕 is an HSK 5 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.