柳暗花明

liǔ'ànhuāmíng
idiom #36,877

Meanings

  1. 1 shady willows and bright flowers
  2. 2 a sudden turn for the better; light at the end of the tunnel

Examples

Jiù zài zuì kùnnán de shíhou, shìqíng chūxiànle liǔ'ànhuāmíng de zhuǎnjī.
Just when things were hardest, a bright turn of fortune appeared.
Shān chóng shuǐ fù yí wú lù, liǔ'ànhuāmíng yòu yī cūn.
Mountains pile up, waters fold back — you think the path is lost; then shady willows and bright flowers reveal another village.

Tips

history
The phrase is famous from Wang Wei and Wu Yuanheng (Tang), but its idiomatic force today comes from Lu You's Song couplet 柳暗花明 — the canonical image of hope arriving where the road seemed to end.
grammar
Apostrophe needed: liǔ'àn — marks the syllable boundary before the vowel-initial (àn).

Stroke Order

liǔ
àn
huā
míng