DICTIONARY
The Chinese word bude bu - 不得不 - bùdé bù
(to have to in Chinese)
Phonetic script (Hanyu Pinyin)
bùdé bù
Listen to pronunciation
(Mandarin = standard Chinese without accent)
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English translations
to have to,
to have no choice but to, cannot help but, can't avoid
Chinese characters:
For obtaining stroke order animations, visit the links to the individual characters below.
The traditional Chinese characters of bùdé bù are identical with the modern (simplified) characters displayed above.
Chinese Pinyin example sentence with 不得不 ( bude bu / bùdé bù ) ⓘWriting in Pinyin
Before using this Pinyin example sentence, consider that Chinese characters should always be your first choice in written communication.
If you cannot use Chinese characters, it is preferable to use the Pinyin with tones. Only use the Pinyin without tones if there's no other option (e.g. writing a text message from/to a mobile phone that doesn't support special characters such as ā, í, ǒ, ù).
Before using this Pinyin example sentence, consider that Chinese characters should always be your first choice in written communication.
If you cannot use Chinese characters, it is preferable to use the Pinyin with tones. Only use the Pinyin without tones if there's no other option (e.g. writing a text message from/to a mobile phone that doesn't support special characters such as ā, í, ǒ, ù).
Xia yu le, women budebu liu zai jia li.
Xià yǔ le, wǒmen bùdébù liú zài jiā lǐ.– English translation: It's raining, so we have to stay at home.
Tags and additional information
(Meaning of individual characters, character components etc.)
cannot | not
不得不 ( bude bu / bùdé bù ) belongs to the 1000 most common composed words in Chinese language (rank 855)
不得不 ( bude bu / bùdé bù ) belongs to the 1000 most common composed words in Chinese language (rank 855)
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All words in this dictionary (more to come) were taken from the multimedia Chinese learning software Han Trainer Pro.
This Chinese-English dictionary is currently under development.
This Chinese-English dictionary is currently under development.
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Version 5.52 / Last updated: 2026-11-03