Clay becomes very hard when it is put in a fire or a special oven called a kiln.

VOA: special.2009.01.12

If you squeeze the trigger of a gun really hard and really fast, it doesn't fire any faster or harder than if you just squeezed it gently.

快速有力地扣动扳机,并不比你轻扣扳机,射出的更加快速或更加有力

耶鲁公开课 - 心理学导论课程节选

South African labour laws make it hard to fire workers, which deters companies from hiring them in the first place.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

One sign of greater labour-market flexibility is that companies are bypassing stringent job-protection laws that make it hard to fire workers.

ECONOMIST: Growth and jobs

The snag is that unprofitable companies, which should have been squeezed out by competition, have remained alive because it is so hard to fire workers.

ECONOMIST: India's economy