难兄难弟

Pronunciation: nán xiōng nán dì Literal meaning: Difficult elder and younger brothers

Origin & Usage

This is from the Shishuo Xinyu, on the two sons of Chen Shi, of whom it was said that each was hard (难) to be the elder brother (兄) of and hard to be the younger brother (弟) of — neither could be ranked above the other. Read that way it is high praise. The character 难 was later taken in its other sense, calamity, and the phrase came to mean two people who have been through hardship together, or ironically two who are equally bad. Modern usage is normally the ironic one.

Examples

English: "The two struggling companies formed an alliance to survive the market downturn"

Chinese: 这两家陷入困境的公司结成联盟以度过市场低迷期