khổ lực
Definition
Adjective:
- Involving great effort and hardship; arduous, strenuous: Describes work, tasks, or processes that require significant physical or mental exertion and are difficult to endure.
- Painstaking, laborious: Characterizes an action done with or requiring a lot of careful, diligent, and hard work.
Noun:
- Hard work, strenuous effort, toil: Refers to the act of exerting oneself greatly, often under difficult conditions.
Usage Examples
Adjective:
- Đây là một công việc khổ lực. (This is an arduous job.)
- Quá trình học tập khổ lực cuối cùng cũng mang lại kết quả. (The painstaking learning process finally yielded results.)
Noun:
- Sự thành công của anh ấy là nhờ vào khổ lực. (His success is thanks to hard work.)
- Họ đã bỏ ra nhiều khổ lực để xây dựng ngôi nhà. (They put in a lot of strenuous effort to build the house.)
Advanced Usage
- "khổ lực lắm mới...": It was only with great difficulty that... / Managed to... only after much effort.
- Tôi khổ lực lắm mới hoàn thành bài báo cáo. (I managed to finish the report only after much effort.)
Variants and Related Words
Khổ (adj/n): Suffering, hardship, bitter. A root word denoting difficulty or pain.
- cuộc sống khổ cực (a life of hardship)
Cực khổ (adj): Miserable, arduous, full of hardship. A synonym with a stronger emphasis on suffering.
- công việc cực khổ (miserably hard work)
Khó nhọc (adj): Difficult and tiring. A close synonym.
- một hành trình khó nhọc (a difficult and tiring journey)
Synonyms
- Vất vả (adj): Hard, tough, laborious. A very common synonym.
- Gian khổ (adj): Full of trials and tribulations; arduous. Often used for historically difficult struggles.
- Nhọc nhằn (adj): Wearying, toilsome.
Related Phrases
Khổ luyện (v): To train/practice assiduously and with great hardship.
- Vận động viên khổ luyện mỗi ngày. (The athlete trains assiduously every day.)
Khổ công (n): Painstaking effort, great pains taken.
- anh ấy khổ công chăm sóc khu vườn (he took great pains to care for the garden)