What does 邯郸学步 mean?

邯郸学步 (Hándān xué bù) literally means 'learning to walk in Handan.' It describes copying others so blindly that you fail to learn their skill and lose your own as well.

Where does Learning to Walk in Handan come from?

It comes from the chapter 'Autumn Floods' (Qiu shui) in the Zhuangzi. Prince Mou of Wei tells the logician Gongsun Long that a young man from Shouling never learned the Handan walk, lost his old one too, and could only crawl home.

What is the English equivalent of 邯郸学步?

There is no exact English idiom. 'Monkey see, monkey do' captures the blind copying, and the advice 'just be yourself' sums up the lesson.

Is Handan a real place?

Yes. Handan was the capital of the Warring States kingdom of Zhao and is a city in Hebei province today. It is often called the home of Chinese idioms, because so many come from stories set there.

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Chinese idiom · 声匠改编 · 3:51

Learning to Walk in Handan

A young man goes to Handan to learn its stylish walk, copies everyone, forgets how to walk at all, and crawls home. The story behind han dan xue bu.

Narrator

The Young Man from Shouling

The Flatbread Seller

The Little Girl

The Old Man

0:000:00

Other languages · 2 languages

🇨🇳 中文 🇺🇸 English

About this story

Learning to Walk in Handan tells the story behind the Chinese idiom 邯郸学步 (Hándān xué bù), literally 'learning to walk in Handan.' It comes from 'Autumn Floods' (Qiu shui), one of the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi, the Daoist classic named after the fourth-century-BCE thinker Zhuang Zhou: Prince Mou of Wei warns the logician Gongsun Long about a young man from Shouling in Yan who went to Handan, the capital of Zhao, to copy the way people walked there, failed, forgot his own walk, and had to crawl home. This version fills Handan's streets with a flatbread seller, a cheeky little girl and a white-bearded old man who watch him get more and more muddled.

What it teaches

Learning from others is good, but copying them blindly can make you lose what you already had. Work out why something works, and whether it suits you, before you try it.

Suits

Ages 6 and up

Tips for telling it

Act out the walking together: high steps, tiny steps, giant strides, and finally a big tumble.
Ask: was the young man wrong to want to learn, or wrong in how he learned?
Pair it with The Frog in the Well (井底之蛙), which comes from the same chapter of the Zhuangzi.

Questions people ask

What does 邯郸学步 mean?: 邯郸学步 (Hándān xué bù) literally means 'learning to walk in Handan.' It describes copying others so blindly that you fail to learn their skill and lose your own as well.
Where does Learning to Walk in Handan come from?: It comes from the chapter 'Autumn Floods' (Qiu shui) in the Zhuangzi. Prince Mou of Wei tells the logician Gongsun Long that a young man from Shouling never learned the Handan walk, lost his old one too, and could only crawl home.
What is the English equivalent of 邯郸学步?: There is no exact English idiom. 'Monkey see, monkey do' captures the blind copying, and the advice 'just be yourself' sums up the lesson.
Is Handan a real place?: Yes. Handan was the capital of the Warring States kingdom of Zhao and is a city in Hebei province today. It is often called the home of Chinese idioms, because so many come from stories set there.