无可奈何

Pronunciation: wú kě nài hé Literal meaning: Without any way to deal with it

Origin & Usage

Without (无) any (可) way of dealing with it (奈何). 奈何 is itself a question — how is this to be handled — so the phrase says there is no answer to the question, which is more exact than helplessness: the situation has been understood, and nothing follows from understanding it. Yan Shu's line fixed the tone: 无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来, nothing to be done, the flowers are falling; and the swallows come back looking like ones I knew. What cannot be argued with — weather, illness, time, a decision taken somewhere else — and the note is resignation rather than complaint.

Examples

English: "Faced with the natural disaster, the villagers felt helpless."

Chinese: 面对自然灾害，村民们无可奈何。