愚公移山 (yú gōng yí shān): Meaning, Story and Two Uses

Read the tone before choosing an English translation

愚公移山, pronounced yú gōng yí shān, is often introduced through “the foolish old man moves mountains.” That is an image-based rendering. In a sentence praising a sustained undertaking, determined perseverance or the spirit of persisting against great difficulty may communicate the point more directly.

The Education Ministry dictionary records two uses: perseverance in pursuing a goal and, in a critical context, inefficient effort. [1] A sentence that questions doing everything by a slow method need not be an endorsement of that method. The dictionary’s language description is not evidence that persistence guarantees a real project’s success.

The simplified and traditional forms are both 愚公移山. Keep all four pinyin syllables: yú, gōng, yí, shān. The story figure’s name and the mountain-moving image belong together; “moving mountains” alone can lose the particular Chinese allusion.

The Liezi story includes a supernatural ending

The dictionary identifies the narrative as Liezi, Tang Wen. In its classical passage, an old man living beside two mountains wants to remove the obstruction. His household discusses the work and disposal of the earth and stone. When another man challenges the undertaking, he argues that descendants can continue after him while the mountains do not keep growing. [1]

The passage does not end with a report that the family has excavated both mountains. A mountain deity reports the persistent effort to the heavenly ruler; that ruler is moved by the old man’s resolve and orders powerful beings to carry the mountains away. [1] Keep that ending visible when explaining the literary story.

This distinction matters for translation and teaching. The narrative supplies an image of resolve, along with a supernatural resolution. It is not a surveyed construction case, a schedule calculation or proof that every difficult method should be continued indefinitely.

If a direct entry link shows the dictionary’s entrance notice, use the official dictionary homepage, choose an edition and search the Chinese headword. That is the normal route used to read the source for this guide.

Two original sentences with different judgments

The following teaching examples are fictional; no volunteer project or efficiency trial is reported.

整理这批旧资料很费工夫，志愿者们靠着愚公移山的精神，一册一册地核对。

“Organising these old records takes considerable work; the volunteers check them volume by volume with determined perseverance.” The work is demanding, and the sentence praises the volunteers’ continued effort. It does not state that their project has finished.

明明已有检索工具，还坚持每次从第一页找起，这种愚公移山式的办法并不高效。

“An index tool is already available, yet each search still starts at the first page; this mountain-moving approach is inefficient.” Here the sentence criticises the chosen method. The contextual words about a usable alternative and efficiency establish the reading; the idiom alone should not be translated as praise.

愚公移山的精神 can emphasise resolve in an encouraging sentence. A phrase such as 愚公移山式的办法 needs the surrounding evaluation before you decide how to translate it. These constructions illustrate the two recorded senses rather than creating a rule that one grammatical form is always positive and another always negative.

Check what the speaker is evaluating

The less familiar critical use deserves context. Do not manufacture a negative reading because the literal expression contains “foolish,” and do not manufacture praise because you remember a perseverance lesson. Read what the sentence actually says.

Keep a neighbouring perseverance image on its own page

The existing 水滴石穿 entry is a useful next reading for the image of repeated small effort. This page answers the different headword and narrative question, including the second recorded use. You do not need a separate page for every English rendering of 愚公移山.

When explaining an allusion, distinguish the classical source passage, a later retelling and your own teaching example. The source-checking guide shows how to keep those roles visible. If you have only a loose memory of an ending, locate the passage before asserting it.

Choose the reading from a complete sentence

Fictional comment: “We appreciate your effort, but repeating this manual search when an index is available is hardly an efficient 愚公移山式的办法.” Does the idiom turn the comment into simple praise?

Use the original blank context record to name the task, the speaker’s evaluation and your English choice. Mark an uncertain tone when the surrounding passage is missing.