得不偿失 débùchángshī▶ no valer la pena; salir perdiendo

Stroke order

得不偿失 is written in 31 strokes across 4 characters.

• 得 — 11 strokes
• 不 — 4 strokes
• 偿 — 11 strokes
• 失 — 5 strokes

Related words

• 不免inevitable
• 不堪no soportar
• 不妨bien podría
• 不惜no escatimar; no dudar
• 不愧Digno
• 不料Inesperadamente

得不偿失 is pronounced débùchángshī and means “no valer la pena; salir perdiendo”. You will meet it in HSK 6, a band of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi — the standard test of Chinese proficiency. Most learners can pick 得不偿失 out of a list long before they can reach for it unprompted, and the gap between those two closes only with repeated recall. LexiTrail schedules the next sighting from how well you did on the last.