Chinese idiom · 成语
邯郸学步
Meaning
To imitate others and lose one’s own ability; to copy clumsily.
Character by character
Origin and story
Philosophical fableIn the Qiushui (秋水) chapter of Zhuangzi (莊子), a young person from Shouling goes to Handan to learn the local way of walking. The attempt fails twice over: the visitor never masters Handan’s gait and also forgets how to walk in the original way. The tale ends with the would-be imitator crawling home.
The story occurs in a philosophical exchange in which Prince Mou warns Gongsun Long that trying to grasp another way of thinking with inadequate understanding may leave him without even his former learning. The later idiom draws out the image of failed imitation: copying someone else so mechanically that one loses existing strengths or an individual style. It does not mean that learning from others is itself a mistake.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
我写文章时一味模仿名家的语气，反而失去了自己的风格，真是邯郸学步。
I copied famous writers’ voices so blindly that I lost my own style—a failed imitation that cost me what I already had.
The key is losing one’s own strengths while failing to master what one imitates.