sap6 nin4 syu6 muk6 ，baak3 nin4 syu6 jan4十年樹木，百年樹人十年树木，百年树人
Jyutpingsap6 nin4 syu6 muk6 ，baak3 nin4 syu6 jan4
Yalesahp nìhn syuh muhk ，baak nìhn syuh yàhn
Definition
It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person.
writtenschoolpeople
How it's used
This idiom is frequently cited in speeches about education or long-term human resource development. It emphasizes that nurturing talent is a slow, patient process that cannot be rushed, contrasting the relatively quick growth of a tree with the lifelong development of a person. It carries a formal and reflective tone, often used to justify why immediate results should not be expected from educational reforms.
Examples
Education is a long-term endeavor that takes a decade to grow trees and a century to cultivate people.
If you want to cultivate talent, you must remember that it takes a decade to grow trees and a century to train a person.
Related words
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Grammar guides
- In 30 secondsThe whole language at a glance. No tenses, no plurals, six tones, sentence particles. Read this before you dive into any specific topic.
- ParticlesSentence particles add tone, emotion, and nuance. Learn the most common particles in Cantonese and how to use them.
- Possession (嘅)How to say my, your, and his, and how to link a describing word to a noun, all with the little word 嘅 (ge3).
