伤脑筋 Save Sign in to save words Traditional (Taiwan): 傷腦筋 On the HSK 7-9 vocabulary list, at CEFR level C2. shāngnǎojīn ㄕㄤ ㄋㄠˇ ㄐㄧㄣ to be a real headache to find sth a real headache to beat one's brains Character by character 伤(shāng)injure 脑(nǎo)brain 筋(jīn)muscle A Chinese word or character, or English Search Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0 国际中文教育中文水平等级标准, 中华人民共和国教育部, MIT