麻烦麻煩 máfan — troublesome, inconvenient, a hassle
Traditional: 麻煩
troublesome, inconvenient, a hassle
Meanings
troublesome, inconvenient, a hassle
Two characters that together mean little on their own beyond this compound — a task tangled enough to cost time and patience. What opposes it is not 简单, simple in structure, but 方便, easy to deal with: paperwork is 麻烦 even when every single step is 简单.
adjectiveto trouble, to bother (someone with a request)
verb麻烦你 opens a polite request the way "sorry to bother you" does — it apologises in advance for the small trouble about to be asked, and almost never appears without the person named right after it.
Common combinations
- 麻烦你máfan (second tone, rising) nǐ (third tone, dipping)
sorry to bother you, could you please…
Example sentences
- 这件事很麻烦，我不知道应该怎么办。這件事很麻煩，我不知道應該怎麼辦。Zhè (fourth tone, falling) jiàn (fourth tone, falling) shì (fourth tone, falling) hěn (third tone, dipping) máfan, (second tone, rising) wǒ (third tone, dipping) bù (fourth tone, falling) zhīdào (first tone, high and level) yīnggāi (first tone, high and level) zěnme (third tone, dipping) bàn. (fourth tone, falling)···
This is really troublesome — I don’t know what to do.
- 麻烦你，能帮我开一下门吗？麻煩你，能幫我開一下門嗎？Máfan (second tone, rising) nǐ, (third tone, dipping) néng (second tone, rising) bāng (first tone, high and level) wǒ (third tone, dipping) kāi (first tone, high and level) yíxià (second tone, rising) mén (second tone, rising) ma? (neutral tone)···
Sorry to trouble you — could you help me open the door?
Common mistakes
Not quite麻烦，你能帮我开一下门吗？
Correct麻烦你，能帮我开一下门吗？
As a polite opener, 麻烦 needs its object right after it — 麻烦你, "trouble you [for a moment]." Left bare, 麻烦 just complains that something is troublesome, which is not the polite request that was intended.