刻鹄类鹜
kè hú lèi wù · to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom); to fail utterly in trying to copy something; to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result
Character breakdown
Study each Hanzi separately, then return to the complete word so pronunciation, meaning, and movement stay connected.
How to learn 刻鹄类鹜
Listen once without reading, repeat the pinyin with its tones, then write every character in sequence. Finally, recall the complete meaning instead of memorizing each character as an isolated translation.
When the word appears in a sentence, check whether its part of speech and meaning match the definition shown here. Chinese words can change nuance with context.
Words with the same characters
Compare how a familiar Hanzi changes meaning inside another word.
quarter (hour); moment; to carve; to engrave; to cut; oppressive; classifier for short time intervals
分类fēnlèito classify
类lèikind; type; class; category; (classifier) kind; type; (bound form) to resemble; to be similar to
类似lèisìsimilar; analogous
类型lèixíngtype; kind; category; (computer programming) type
立刻lìkèimmediately; at once; right away