Chinese word dictionary

玩火自焚

wán huǒ zì fén · to play with fire and get burnt (idiom); fig. to play with evil and suffer the consequences; to get one's fingers burnt

Practice word

Word information

Simplified玩火自焚

Traditional玩火自焚

Pinyinwán huǒ zì fén

Part of speechDictionary

HSK 3.0Not listed

HSK 2.0Not listed

Character breakdown

Study each Hanzi separately, then return to the complete word so pronunciation, meaning, and movement stay connected.

玩wán

to play with, to joke, to entertain

火huǒ

fire

自zì

self; private, personal; from

焚fén

to burn

How to learn 玩火自焚

Listen once without reading, repeat the pinyin with its tones, then write every character in sequence. Finally, recall the complete meaning instead of memorizing each character as an isolated translation.

When the word appears in a sentence, check whether its part of speech and meaning match the definition shown here. Chinese words can change nuance with context.

Related vocabulary

Words with the same characters

Compare how a familiar Hanzi changes meaning inside another word.

好玩儿hǎowánr

erhua variant of 好玩[hao3 wan2]

火车huǒchē

train; CL:列[lie4],節|节[jie2],班[ban1],趟[tang4]

玩wán

to play; to have fun; to trifle with; toy; sth used for amusement; curio or antique (Taiwan pr. [wan4]); to keep sth for entertainment; variant of 玩[wan2]; Taiwan pr. [wan4]

自己zìjǐ

oneself; (attributive) one's own

来自láizì

to come from (a place); From: (in email header)

自行车zìxíngchē

bicycle; bike; CL:輛|辆[liang4]