Chinese · Idiom Attested

见异思迁

jiàn yì sī qiān

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

Traditional: 見異思遷

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To change your mind the moment you see something new or different; unable to stay loyal to one choice. Used critically of people who keep switching jobs, interests or partners.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Thấy cái mới lạ là muốn thay đổi ngay: không kiên định, không chung thuỷ với lựa chọn của mình. Dùng để chê người hay đổi việc, đổi sở thích hoặc thay lòng trong tình cảm.

Literally: see something different, think of moving on

Examples

谈恋爱要专一，不能见异思迁。Tán liàn'ài yào zhuānyī, bùnéng jiàn yì sī qiān.In love you should be devoted to one person and not have your head turned by every new face.

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 ↗ ; en.wiktionary Vietnamese entries via kaikki.org extract, snapshot 2026-07-31 (CC BY-SA 4.0): Hán-Việt reading 异/異 = dị · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “kiến dị tư thiên” (kien-di-tu-thien). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.

Equivalents & related

Hán-Việt cognate kiến dị tư thiên Seeing something different, wanting to move on — fickle; unable to stay with one job, interest or partner once a new one comes into view. Tiếng Việt

Common questions

What does “见异思迁” mean?

To change your mind the moment you see something new or different; unable to stay loyal to one choice. Used critically of people who keep switching jobs, interests or partners. Literally: see something different, think of moving on

Is “见异思迁” formal or informal?

见异思迁 is generally neutral.

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