相见恨晚
xiāng jiàn hèn wǎn
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 相見恨晚
To get on so well with someone you have just met that you wish you had known each other sooner. Said warmly about a new friend, a like-minded colleague or a new love.
Vừa gặp đã thấy hợp nhau đến mức tiếc rằng không quen biết sớm hơn. Là lời nói thân tình về người bạn mới, người cùng chí hướng hoặc người yêu mới gặp.
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 ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “tương kiến hận vãn” (tuong-kien-han-van). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “相见恨晚” mean?
To get on so well with someone you have just met that you wish you had known each other sooner. Said warmly about a new friend, a like-minded colleague or a new love. Literally: meet each other, regret it was so late
Is “相见恨晚” formal or informal?
相见恨晚 is generally neutral.