Chinese · Idiom Attested

不近人情

bù jìn rén qíng

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Cold and unreasonable: going against ordinary human feelings and what anyone would naturally expect. Used to criticise a person, a rule or a decision as harsh and inconsiderate.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Trái với tình cảm và lẽ thường của con người: cứng nhắc, lạnh lùng, không biết thông cảm. Dùng để chê một người, một quy định hay một cách xử sự quá khắt khe.

Literally: not close to human feelings

Examples

这个规定太不近人情了。Zhège guīdìng tài bù jìn rén qíng le.This rule is far too harsh; it takes no account of people's feelings.

Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check

Sources & notes

Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “bất cận nhơn tình” (bat-can-nhon-tinh). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.

Equivalents & related

Hán-Việt cognate bất cận nhơn tình Out of touch with human feeling — conduct by private code, deaf to how people are. Tiếng Việt

Common questions

What does “不近人情” mean?

Cold and unreasonable: going against ordinary human feelings and what anyone would naturally expect. Used to criticise a person, a rule or a decision as harsh and inconsiderate. Literally: not close to human feelings

Is “不近人情” formal or informal?

不近人情 is generally neutral.

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