Stern in Chinese
stern · HSK 5
严肃
- 严 strict
- 肃 solemn
老师的表情很严肃。 The teacher's expression is very stern.
Other ways to say stern
More words with 严 or 肃
How do you say stern in Chinese?
Stern in Chinese is 严肃 (yán sù). You can also say 严 (yán), 严厉 (yán lì).
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.
More free tools
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Meanings from our own dictionary. Chinese often has more than one way to say a word.