si1 jan1 mok6 mong6 bou3施恩莫望報施恩莫望报
Jyutpingsi1 jan1 mok6 mong6 bou3
Yalesī yān mohk mohng bou
Definition
To do a good deed without expecting any reward or return.
colloquialpeople
How it's used
This is a classical idiom often used as a piece of moral advice in daily life. It emphasizes the importance of altruism and warns against transactional relationships where kindness is used as leverage for future favors. It is typically used in a formal or semi-formal tone to remind someone to keep their expectations low when performing a good deed.
Examples
Virtue is its own reward; don't expect anything back when you help others.
You help him all the time, just remember that virtue is its own reward.
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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).
