Tiếng Việt · Idiom Candidate

nước xa không cứu được lửa gần

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Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Distant help is useless in an emergency

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

sự giúp đỡ từ xa là vô ích trong tình huống khẩn cấp

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: Far water cannot save near fire

Where it’s used: Used Toàn quốc & hải ngoại · Vietnam-wide & diaspora

Examples

Anh ấy ở Mỹ, không thể giúp gì được cho gia đình trong cơn khó khăn này, nước xa không cứu được lửa gầnHe is in the US, cannot help his family in this difficult time, distant help is useless

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed on Vietnamese Wikiquote “Thành ngữ Việt Nam” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Topics: Fire Water

Common questions

What does “nước xa không cứu được lửa gần” mean?

Distant help is useless in an emergency Literally: Far water cannot save near fire

Is “nước xa không cứu được lửa gần” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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