# 争先恐后 (zhēngxiānkǒnghòu)

In Mandarin Chinese, 争先恐后 (zhēngxiānkǒnghòu) means “to rush to be first”. It is part of the HSK 7–9 vocabulary list in the official HSK 3.0 standard.

- Meaning: to rush to be first
- Pinyin: zhēngxiānkǒnghòu (zheng1 xian1 kong3 hou4)
- Traditional: 爭先恐後
- HSK 3.0 · Level 7–9
- HSK 2.0 · Level 6

## Examples

- 孩子们争先恐后地回答问题。
  Háizimen zhēngxiānkǒnghòu de huídá wèntí.
  The children rushed to be the first to answer the question.

## Characters

- [争](https://hanziro.com/word/zheng-strive/) (zhēng): to strive for; to argue
- [先](https://hanziro.com/word/xian-first/) (xiān): first; beforehand
- 恐 (kǒng): afraid; frightened
- [后](https://hanziro.com/word/hou-after/) (hòu): after; behind

https://hanziro.com/word/zheng-xian-kong-hou-rush-be-first/

Dictionary data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Audio: audio-cmn (CC BY-SA).