Practice Makes Perfect

Characters:

Pronunciation: shu(2) neng(2) sheng(1) qiao(3)
Explanation: Skill comes from practice.

Tone: Positive

The Story: A man named Chen Yazi was good at shooting. One day he was shooting at the shooting range. Many people around applauded his skill, but an old man just nodded. It seemed like he did not think that was a surprise or talent at all.

Chen Yazi thought the old man despised him, so he walked to the old man and asked: "Can you shoot?"

"No," the old man said, "but from my point of view, although you shoot well, that's nothing special. It's just because you practice more." Chen Yazi was angry, he said: "How can you make a comment on me like this--you even know nothing about shooting!"

The old man said, "I am an oil-vendor. I have some skill on pouring oil. Now I will show you."

The old man put a calabash on the ground and placed a copper coin on the opening. The old man poured the whole scoop of oil through the center hole of the coin into the calabash. He finished it without one drop on the edge of the coin's center hole. Then the old man said: "You see, I have no special talent. It's just because I am familiar with it and practice it a lot that I am so good!"

After that, Chen Yazi never again was cocky about his shooting skill.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Ren(2) ren(2) dou(1) zhi(1) dao(4) shu(2) neng(2) sheng(1) qiao(3).

Usage Example (English translation): Everyone knows practice makes perfect.

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.