Describing Problems

ChineseEnglishTone
棘手的trickyCasual, common
棘手的challengingMore formal
复杂的complexNeutral
困难的difficultGeneral

Example Sentences

  • “We encountered a tricky bug yesterday.” (casual)
  • “This is a challenging problem to solve.” (more formal)
  • “The architecture is quite complex.” (neutral)

Describing Progress

ChineseEnglishTone
解决了solved / resolvedNeutral
搞定了figured out / nailedCasual
完成了completed / finishedFormal

Example Sentences

  • “I finally solved the issue.” (neutral)
  • “We figured out what was wrong.” (casual)
  • “The task has been completed.” (formal)

Duration

ChineseEnglishTone
花了很多时间spent a lot of timeGeneral
花了很长时间took quite a whileCasual
持续了…lasted for…Formal

Example Sentences

  • “I spent a lot of time on this project.”
  • “The meeting took quite a while.”
  • “The project lasted for three months.”

Practice

Choose the right word.

  1. We faced a ___ bug in production. (tricky/difficult/challenging)

  2. I finally ___ the problem after hours of debugging. (solved/figured out)

  3. The project ___ for three months. (spent a lot of time/lasted for/lasted for)

  4. The team just ___ the core functionality. (completed/finished)

Answers:

  1. tricky (casual, common)
  2. solved (neutral)
  3. lasted for (formal)
  4. completed (formal)