Dictionary › 素不相识

素不相识

sù bù xiāng shí

HSK 3.0 level 7-9 4-character word Traditional 素不相識

素不相识 (sù bù xiāng shí) means "to be total strangers (idiom)". It is an HSK 3.0 level 7-9 word, and was not on the old six-level HSK list.

What 素不相识 means

1. to be total strangers (idiom)

The characters in 素不相识

• 素sùraw silk; white; plain, unadorned
• 不bùno; not so; (bound form) not; un-
• 相xiāngeach other; one another; mutually
• 识shíto know; knowledge; Taiwan pr. shì

Example sentences

• 在你面前有一百万美金。你可以自己留下或帮一个你不认识的快全身瘫痪的人做手术。他不认识你，你也不认识他。当然，无论你慷慨地把所有的钱都捐给了一个素不相识的人去做手术，还是卑鄙地拿走这笔钱，让那个人今生都只能卧床不起，都不会有人知道。你会怎幺做呢？这笔钱不可割分。
  You've got a million dollars in front of you. You can either spend it for yourself or spend it on a surgery for someone you don't know who is in danger of quadriplegia. You don't know each other. And no one will ever know what a noble deed you've done sacrificing all the money for the surgery for a person you don't know, or how mean you were to take the money confining that person to a wheelchair for the rest of their life. So what would you do? You can't share the money.

Go deeper

• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read sù bù xiāng shí correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.