What does “软 (ruǎn)” mean in Chinese?

软 (ruǎn) means soft, and its opposite 硬 (yìng) means hard. They appear together as a guessing clue in the clip: the hidden object is 很软 (very soft), emphatically not 硬 like a stone (石头). Chinese antonym pairs like 软/硬, 大/小, 快/慢 are drilled early because they let learners halve the search space in any description — rule out one, know the other.

The five-clue guessing game in the clip works through: very soft → four legs → two ears → two eyes → you can hug it to sleep. The answer is a teddy bear (小熊, xiǎoxióng). Beyond physical texture, 软 extends to personality: 心软 (xīn ruǎn) means a soft heart, easy to move emotionally, while 硬撑 (yìng chēng) means to tough it out stiffly. The physical roots make the figurative senses easy to remember.