临河羡鱼 lín hé xiàn yú

to only envy others’ success instead of acting

Word data

HSK Not in HSK
Frequency Unknown

Definitions

  1. 1. see lín yuān xiàn yúlín yuān xiàn yú,不如退而结网[lin2 yuan1 xian4 yu2 , bu4 ru2 tui4 er2 jie2 wang3]

Characters

Character Meaning
to face; to be (just) about to; just before
river
to envy
fish; surname Yu