久しぶり！
It’s been a while since my last 四字熟語 post. I think I’m going to try to switch up the style of these posts from now on. This includes sharing where exactly I find the 四字熟語, as well as more nice looking formatting. I’ll also try to keep to a normal weekly schedule from now on, but of course that depends on how often I come across new 四字熟語. Well, let’s get to it!
This week’s 四字熟語 is 四苦八苦。
Where the Heck…?
I found this while reading an article for my Japanese Reading class. The sentence, sans context, reads as follows:
同時に、幾何の問題で四苦八苦している中学生が、友人から補助線を引いてもらって、まがりなりに答案が書けたような気にもなった。
Breakin’ it Down
四苦八苦
し・く・はっ・く
four-suffering-eight-suffering
Basically, this means a lot of suffering/not so fun effort.
The definition given over at the Japanese Yahoo Online Dictionary is as follows: 非常に苦労、また、苦悩すること。
非常に（ひ・じょう）extremely
苦労（く・ろう）hardship(s);
苦悩（く・のう）agony; suffering
Examples:
The examples my 電子辞書 provide are as follows:
借金に四苦八苦する – be struggling with debts
仕事が多くて四苦八苦している – I’m up to my neck in work.
四苦八苦して小説を書き上げた – He sweated blood to finish writing the novel.
破産して四苦八苦の有り様だ – I’ve gone bankrupt and am in dire straits.
