Chinese language study HK – Chinese idioms

   

    Mandarin Lesson

        This legend is about Li Bai, a great poet in Tang Dynasty.

  Li Bai was naughty and disliked study when he was a child. One day he saw an old woman grinding an iron rod on a big stone when he was playing by a river. Driven by curiosity, Li Bai came up and asked,

  ”What are you doing, granny?”

  ”Grinding an iron rod,” said the old women without stopping grinding.

  ”Then what for?” he asked again.

  ”To make a sewing needle,” was the answer.

  ”What?!” little Li Bai was puzzled, “you want to grind so big a rod into a needle?!It will take many years.”

  ”This doesn’t matter. As long as I persevere in doing so, there is nothing you cannot achieve in the world. Certainly I can make a needle from the rod.”

  Deeply moved by what the old woman said, Li Bai took effort to study since then and finally became one of the greatest poets inChina.

 

                        只要工夫深,鐵杵磨成針
 
這是個關於中國唐代大詩人李白的傳說。
李白小的時候非常調皮,不喜歡讀書。一天他在河邊玩耍的時候看見一位老婦人拿著一根鐵棒在大石頭上磨。李白非常好奇,問那個老婦人:
  “你在幹什麼呀,老奶奶?”
老婦人邊磨邊說:“在磨鐵棒。”
“磨這個乾什麼用啊?” 李白又問。
“做一根繡花針。” 老婦人回答。
  “什麼?!” 小李白聽糊塗了。 “你想把這麼粗的鐵棒磨成繡花針?!可是這要花好多年啊!”
“這沒有關係?只要我堅持下去,世上沒有辦不到的事,我一定能把鐵棒磨成針的。”
  老婦人的話深深打動了李白。從此,他認真刻苦地學習,最終成為了一名偉大的詩人。