Persistence can move anything
The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.
A ninety-year-old whose door was blocked by two mountains began carrying the rock away basket by basket. A neighbour called it hopeless; the old man answered that when he died his sons would carry on, and their sons after them, while the mountains would grow no higher. The story ends with the gods themselves moving the mountains aside.
Source: 《列子》Liezi, c. 4th century AD
The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.
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愚公移山 is pronounced yú gōng yí shān and means persistence can move anything. Literally it says "the Foolish Old Man moves the mountains" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《列子》Liezi, c. 4th century AD. A ninety-year-old whose door was blocked by two mountains began carrying the rock away basket by basket. A neighbour called it hopeless; the old man answered that when he died his sons would carry on, and their sons after them, while the mountains would grow no higher. The story ends with the gods themselves moving the mountains aside.
yú gōng yí shān. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.
愚 (yú) Stupid (fool - foolish), 公 (gōng) Public (official), 移 (yí) Move (change - shift - alter - remove), 山 (shān) Mountain (hill - iceberg). These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.
Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the beginner band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 愚公移山 from scrambled tiles in the Chengyu Story Puzzle, test yourself on idiom meanings in the Chengyu Quiz, browse all the idioms, or save this one above and review it on your review deck.
Every idiom here comes with the story it was compressed from — that is the rule for being listed, and it is why they stick.
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