Chinese idiom · 成语
相见恨晚
Meaning
To regret meeting so late; to wish for earlier friendship.
Character by character
Origin and story
historical accountThe Shiji, volume 112, describes an emperor summoning three men and asking where they had been and why he had met them so late. The remark expresses pleasure at discovering people whose abilities he values, together with regret at the delay. It supplies an older model for the feeling expressed by the idiom, rather than its exact four-character wording.
The compact form appears in later literature, including a lyric by the Song poet Fang Qianli. There the feeling belongs to personal attraction and lingering thoughts of another person. Modern usage can be warmly friendly as well as romantic: meeting someone so congenial that one wishes the acquaintance had begun much sooner.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
我们聊起旅行和读书，越聊越投机，都觉得相见恨晚。
The more we talked about travel and books, the more we clicked; we both wished we'd met sooner.
Warmly describes a welcome new friendship or connection; 恨 means regret, not hatred.