頭疼 / 头疼
tóuténg
Headache in Chinese is 頭疼 / 头疼 (tóuténg). If unsure, use 頭疼 / 头疼. Wiktionary also lists 頭痛 / 头痛 (tóutòng).
Meaning: pain or ache in the head (noun)
Ways to say it
| Chinese | Romanization (Wiktionary) |
|---|---|
| 頭疼 / 头疼 | tóuténg |
| 頭痛 / 头痛 | tóutòng |
What does it mean word for word?
The word joins 頭 meaning head and 疼 meaning ache or pain.
Which one should you use?
頭痛 / 头痛 (tóutòng) means the same but is slightly more formal or medical, while 頭疼 is more common in everyday speech.
How do you pronounce it?
Say tóuténg with two rising tones.
Did you know?
- The character 疼 (téng) is also used in the word for 'to love' or 'to dote on' (疼愛, téng'ài), meaning the same root of 'pain' is linked to the way one cherishes someone.
- Chinese has a specific term 頭痛醫頭 which means 'treating the headache to cure the headache'. It is an idiom used to criticize people who only fix the immediate symptoms of a problem instead of addressing the root cause.
- In Traditional Chinese, the character for head 頭 was originally a pictograph of a skull with hair. Over centuries, it evolved into the complex character used today to describe both the physical head and the 'head' or leader of an organization.
Examples in context
- 我 头痛。I have a headache.
- 你 头痛 吗？Do you have a headache?
- 他 经常 头痛。He often gets headaches.
- 昨天 喝 很多 酒，现在 头疼。I drank a lot of alcohol yesterday, now I have a headache.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “headache” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
