Giving Up Half Way

Characters:

Pronunciation: ban (4) tu(2) er(2) fei(4)

Explanation: Meaning lack of constancy to carry a job through its end.

The Story: Long, long ago there was a scholar called Yue Yangzi. Yue left home for a far away place to study. But he came back after one year. His wife, who was weaving cloth at the time, asked, "Have you finished your studies?" Le said, "Not yet. But I missed you very much so I come back to see you." His wife was very angry. She picked up a pair of scissors and said to Yue, "The Yarns are made of cocoons. Then the loom weaves the yarns one by one into cloth. It takes months to weave a piece of silk cloth. Now if I cut it with this pair of scissors, it will waste all I have done before. It is the same for your studies. Knowledge is accumulated day by day and month by month. If you give up halfway, isn't it the same?" Yue was deeply touched when he heard this and left home again for study. He didn't come back again for 7 years!

Usage Example (Pinyin): Ta(1) jing(1) chang(2) ban(4) tu(2) er(2) fei(4), zhe(4) shi(4) ge(4) huai(4) xi(2) guan(4).

Usage Example (English translation): He often gives up half way. That's a bad habit.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.