时势造英雄
shí shì zào yīng xióng
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 時勢造英雄
Great figures are made by the circumstances of their age: troubled or fast-changing times give able people the chance to rise. Said when the moment seems to matter as much as the person.
Thời cuộc làm nên người anh hùng: thời buổi biến động tạo cơ hội cho người có tài vươn lên. Dùng khi muốn nói hoàn cảnh quan trọng không kém gì tài năng cá nhân.
Register: neutral
Examples
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 时/時 = thời; etymology of “thời thế tạo anh hùng” = 時勢造英雄 · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “thời thế tạo anh hùng” (thoi-the-tao-anh-hung). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “时势造英雄” mean?
Great figures are made by the circumstances of their age: troubled or fast-changing times give able people the chance to rise. Said when the moment seems to matter as much as the person. Literally: the times and their trends make heroes
Is “时势造英雄” formal or informal?
时势造英雄 is generally neutral.