宁可

宁可 nìngkě

Would rather

宁可 in a sentence HSK 5 繁體 寧可 ningke

What 宁可 means

  1. Would rather

These meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the Chinese to Pinyin translator and the Chinese to English translator, so a whole sentence containing 宁可 will read it the same way this page does.

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Character by character

宁可 is written with 2 characters. Chinese words are usually easier to remember once you can see what each part contributes.

宁
níng
Peaceful (rather)
可
kě
Can (able to - may - but)

How to write 宁可

Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.

Practise 宁可 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.

宁可 in a sentence

我宁可走路也不坐车。
Wǒ nìngkě zǒu lù yě bú zuò chē.
I would rather walk than take a bus.
他宁可少赚点,也要做好。
Tā nìngkě shǎo zhuàn diǎn, yě yào zuò hǎo.
He would rather earn less and do it well.

Every sentence on this site that uses 宁可 is collected on the 宁可 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.

Questions about 宁可

What does 宁可 mean in English?

宁可 is pronounced nìngkě and means Would rather.

How do you pronounce 宁可?

宁可 is nìngkě in pinyin — written ningke without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.

What are the characters in 宁可?

宁可 is written with 2 characters: 宁 (níng) Peaceful (rather), 可 (kě) Can (able to - may - but). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

How is 宁可 written in traditional Chinese?

寧可. The simplified form 宁可 is used in mainland China and Singapore; 寧可 is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are pronounced nìngkě.

Is 宁可 an HSK word?

Yes — 宁可 is on the official HSK 5 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 5 page.

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