Playing the Lute to a Cow

Characters:

Pronunciation: dui(4) niu (2) tan(2) qin(2)
Explanation: Describe talking deep theory to fools or speaking to an audience on inappropriate subjects

Tone: Neutral

The Story: Long long ago, there was a musician named Gong Mingyi. One day, when he was playing his lute, he saw a cow eating grass near him. Then he thought, "How about performing a piece of music to it?" So he played a very exquisite tune. But the cow was not affected at all, and it still continued to eat its grass just like nothing had happened. Later Gong Mingyi realized: "How can a cow understand such a deep tune!" So he changed his melody--sometimes it sounded like a mosquito's buzz and sometimes it sounded like the "moo moo" of a cow. After the cow heard this, it wagged its tail and pricked up its ears. The cow began to listen!

Usage Example (Pinyin): Bie(2) dui(4) niu(2) tan(2) qin(2) le, ta(1) bu(4) neng(2) li(3) jie(3) ni(3) de gan(3) jue(2).

Usage Example (English translation): Don't play the lute to a cow, he will not understand your feeling.

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.