Saturday 29 August 2009

Daily Chinese Proverb: Horse to Water

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 Rich29 August 2009 at 14:32

    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.

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  2. Charlie @ Discovering Mandarin29 August 2009 at 19:48

    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

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  3. Anonymous26 November 2009 at 16:19

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

    niú
    牛bù
    不yǐ
    饮shuǐ
    水
    ，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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