之乎者也

zhīhūzhěyě

idiom

Meanings

1 lit. zhī, hū, zhě, yě — four common Classical Chinese particles
2 fig. archaic/pedantic talk; (mocking) bookish jargon

Characters

(classical possessive/object particle)

(classical question particle)

(classical nominalizer)

(classical sentence-final particle)

Examples

他一开口就之乎者也，让人听不懂。

Tā yì kāi kǒu jiù zhīhūzhěyě, ràng rén tīng bù dǒng.

The moment he opens his mouth it's all archaic jargon — no one can follow him.

现代演讲不必满口之乎者也。

Xiàndài yǎnjiǎng bù bì mǎn kǒu zhīhūzhěyě.

There's no need to lard a modern speech with classical particles.

Tips

history

Recorded in the Song-dynasty work 《湘山野录》 by Wen Ying: 之乎者也，助得甚事？('What good are zhi-hu-zhe-ye?') Reportedly mocking a scholar's love of classical filler — a quip that has stuck for nearly a thousand years.

memory

All four characters (之, 乎, 者, 也) are real, working particles in Classical Chinese — strung together they signal 'listen to this guy talking like a Han-dynasty scholar.' Lu Xun's Kong Yiji (孔乙己) is the iconic literary user.

Stroke Order

之 zhī

乎 hū

者 zhě

也 yě