缘木求鱼
yuán mù qiú yú
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 緣木求魚
To go about something in a way that cannot possibly work, like going up a tree to find fish. Used to criticise a method that is wrong from the start, however much effort goes into it.
Trèo lên cây mà tìm cá: làm sai cách, sai hướng nên có cố mấy cũng không thể đạt được mục đích. Dùng để chê một phương pháp sai ngay từ đầu.
Register: formal
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 “duyện mộc cầu ngư” (duyen-moc-cau-ngu). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “缘木求鱼” mean?
To go about something in a way that cannot possibly work, like going up a tree to find fish. Used to criticise a method that is wrong from the start, however much effort goes into it. Literally: go up a tree to look for fish
Is “缘木求鱼” formal or informal?
缘木求鱼 is generally formal.