







杯水舆薪 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “an utterly inadequate measure or effort that is insufficient to resolve a major problem; a futile attempt; a drop in the bucket”. Literally, “a cup of water to put out a cartload of firewood”.

Chinese and English fill-in vocabulary worksheets
Open the tool →
Turn a Chinese character or sentence into a GIF or MP4
Open the tool →
Printable tracing sheets with a QR learning companion
Open the tool →
Choose character parts and animate their colors, together or in stroke order
Open the tool →杯水舆薪 (bēi shuǐ yú xīn) is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “an utterly inadequate measure or effort that is insufficient to resolve a major problem; a futile attempt; a drop in the bucket”.
杯水舆薪 is pronounced bēi shuǐ yú xīn in Mandarin Chinese.
Literally, 杯水舆薪 means “a cup of water to put out a cartload of firewood”. It is used to mean “an utterly inadequate measure or effort that is insufficient to resolve a major problem; a futile attempt; a drop in the bucket”.
比喻力量微小,无济于事。同“杯水车薪”。