无奈

无奈 wúnài

To have no alternative; frustrated; exasperated; helpless; (conjunction) but unfortunately^†

无奈 in a sentence HSK 5 繁體無奈 wunai

What 无奈 means

To have no alternative^†
frustrated^†
exasperated^†
helpless^†
(conjunction) but unfortunately^†

† Our own dictionary has no entry for 无奈, so these meanings are adapted from CC-CEDICT, published by MDBG and its contributors and based on CEDICT © 1997, 1998 Paul Andrew Denisowski, and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Recognise a piece of 无奈 but not the character it belongs to? Pick the parts in the component character finder and it will name the character for you — free for every character, with nothing to sign in to.

Character by character

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

无

wú

Not have (-less - not - never mind - un-)

奈

nài

(phonetic)

Words that share a character with 无奈

How to write 无奈

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

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

无奈 in a sentence

他无奈地摇了摇头。

Tā wúnài de yáo le yáo tóu.

He shook his head helplessly.

没有办法，我们只好无奈接受。

Méiyǒu bànfǎ, wǒmen zhǐhǎo wúnài jiēshòu.

There was no choice, so we simply had to accept it.

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

Questions about 无奈

What does 无奈 mean in English?

无奈 is pronounced wúnài and means To have no alternative, frustrated, exasperated, helpless †. The dictionary lists 5 senses in total, all shown on this page.

How do you pronounce 无奈?

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

What are the characters in 无奈?

无奈 is written with 2 characters: 无 (wú) Not have (-less - not - never mind - un-), 奈 (nài) (phonetic). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

How is 无奈 written in traditional Chinese?

無奈. The simplified form 无奈 is used in mainland China and Singapore; 無奈 is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are pronounced wúnài.

Is 无奈 an HSK word?

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

Studied around the same time

问候 wènhòu 卧室 wòshì 握手 wòshǒu 屋子 wūzi 无数 wúshù 无所谓 wúsuǒwèi 武术 wǔshù 勿 wù

Keep going

Translate a whole sentence containing 无奈 with the Chinese to Pinyin translator, study it alongside the rest of HSK 5, drill it with HSK flashcards, or save it above and review it on your review deck.

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