Clumsy in Chinese
clumsy · HSK 7–9
笨拙
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- 笨 stupid
- 拙 clumsy
他笨拙地系着鞋带。 He was clumsily tying his shoelaces.
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Other ways to say clumsy
More words with 笨 or 拙
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How do you say clumsy in Chinese?
Clumsy in Chinese is 笨拙 (bèn zhuō). You can also say 拙劣 (zhuō liè), 笨 (bèn), 蠢 (chǔn).
Which word should I use?
Start with the first one: it is the easiest on the HSK list. The others say it too, often in a more formal way or for a narrower sense; each one’s page has real sentences that show how it is used.
Where do these words come from?
Our own dictionary’s meanings for the official HSK word list. A word is shown for an English word when that is one of its first meanings; the easiest word whose first meaning it is comes first.
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Meanings from our own dictionary. Chinese often has more than one way to say a word.