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千山鸟飞绝

千山鳥飛絕
qiān shān niǎo fēi jué
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 across a thousand hills, the flight of birds is cut off
  2. 2 utter desolation and silence; the stillness of snowbound wilderness
  3. 3 (lit.) thousand-mountain bird-fly cease

Examples

HSK 7-9
雪后的山林千山鸟飞绝，安静得让人屏息。
Xuě hòu de shānlín qiān shān niǎo fēi jué, ānjìng de ràng rén bǐngxī.
After the snow, the forested hills - 'a thousand mountains, no bird flies' - were so still you held your breath.
HSK 7-9
疫情期间的城市，竟有几分千山鸟飞绝的寂寥。
Yìqíng qījiān de chéngshì, jìng yǒu jǐ fēn qiān shān niǎo fēi jué de jìliáo.
The city during the pandemic had a touch of that 'thousand-mountain, no bird flies' loneliness.

Tips

history
Opening line of 柳宗元《江雪》 (Liu Zongyuan, Tang, written during his exile to Yongzhou ca. 810 CE): 千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪 (A thousand mountains - no bird flies; ten thousand paths - no human track. A lone boat, a straw-caped old man, fishing alone on the cold river's snow). One of the most famous 20-character poems in Chinese - a crystalline image of exile and solitude.
usage
Always recited with the next line 万径人踪灭 - together they form a parallel couplet. The four-character structure 千山...绝 / 万径...灭 is a classic example of 对仗 (tonal-grammatical parallelism).

Stroke Order

千 qiān
山 shān
鸟 niǎo
飞 fēi
绝 jué