Daily Chinese Proverb: Horse to Water

Posted by Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin Saturday 29 August 2009
This proverb is about how an animal, and by implication a person, will only do what it/he wants to do.


你可以牵着马去找水,但你不能强迫它去喝
nǐ kě yǐ qiān zhe mǎ qù zhǎo shuǐ, dàn nǐ bù néng qiǎng pò tā qù hē
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink



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3 comments

  1. Bill Rich Says:
  2. That's not a Chinese proverb. That's an English proverb translated in to Chinese. The Chinese version is about cattle, and pushing the head of the cow down to the water.

     
  3. Hi Bill,

    Thanks for dropping by and pointing out my error. I will look into the Chinese version of this proverb as I made the mistake.

    Thank you for pointing it out and hope you will continue to drop by the site.

    Charlie

     
  4. Anonymous Says:
  5. http://discoveringmandarin.blogspot.com/2009/08/daily-chinese-proverb-horse-to-water.html

    niú
    牛bù
    不yǐ
    饮shuǐ

    ,bù
    不néng
    能àn
    按niú
    牛tóu dī
    头低

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

    Lit: You cannot push a cow's head down unless it is drinking water by it's own will.

     

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