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吃力不讨好

chī lì bù tǎo hǎo

5-character word Traditional 吃力不討好

What 吃力不讨好 means

1. arduous and thankless task (idiom); strenuous and unrewarding

The characters in 吃力不讨好

• 吃chīto eat; to consume; to eat at (a cafeteria etc); to eradicate; to destroy
• 力lìpower; force; strength
• 不bùno; not so; (bound form) not; un-
• 讨tǎoto invite; to provoke; to demand or ask for
• 好hǎogood; appropriate; proper; all right!

Example sentences

• 翻译其实是一件吃力不讨好的事，因为一种语言在另一种语言中的对应物藏在往往隐藏在深不可测之处，翻译者需要百般寻觅，而且，挑剔的读者很难糊弄。
  Fānyì qíshí shì yī jiàn chīlìbùtǎohǎo de shì, yīnwèi yīzhǒng yǔyán zài lìngyī zhǒng yǔyán zhōng de duìyìng wù cáng zài wǎngwǎng yǐncáng zài shēnbùkěcè zhī chǔ, fānyìzhě xūyào bǎibān xúnmì, érqiě, tiāoti de dúzhě hěn nán hùnong.
  In reality, translation is akin to working for peanuts, since the corresponding meaning of something in one language is often hidden in some deep and impenetrable recesses of the other. As a result, the translator is forced to search all over... Never mind that the picky reader is very difficult to fool.