川流不息

Pronunciation: chuān liú bù xī Literal meaning: River flows without ceasing

Origin & Usage

Rivers (川) flowing (流) without (不) pause (息). The line is from the Thousand Character Classic, which generations of children learned by heart, so it reaches most Chinese speakers already familiar. 息 is to rest or to breathe, so what is denied is any interval at all. Traffic and crowds above all — the stream of people through a station, the cars on a ring road — and the figure is of volume passing continuously rather than of speed.

Examples

English: "The busy street sees constant traffic day and night."

Chinese: 这条繁忙的街道车流川流不息。