走马看花
zǒu mǎ kàn huā
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 走馬看花
To look at something only in passing, like viewing flowers from a galloping horse. Used for hurried visits, tours, inspections or reading that take in very little.
Cưỡi ngựa xem hoa: chỉ xem lướt qua, qua loa đại khái, không tìm hiểu kỹ. Dùng cho những chuyến tham quan, kiểm tra hay cách đọc sách vội vàng, hời hợt.
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 “tẩu mã khán hoa” (tau-ma-khan-hoa). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “走马看花” mean?
To look at something only in passing, like viewing flowers from a galloping horse. Used for hurried visits, tours, inspections or reading that take in very little. Literally: gallop a horse, look at the flowers
Is “走马看花” formal or informal?
走马看花 is generally neutral.