ba ba ấp bóng

Vietnamese

Etymology

Literally, “soft-shell turtle broods its shadow”. This is referring to the fact that, turtles don't actually have to brood their eggs, but still linger near them for a while in order to keep guard or simply to bask under the sun.[1]

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔəp̚˧˦ ʔɓawŋ͡m˧˦]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔəp̚˦˧˥ ʔɓawŋ͡m˦˧˥] ~ [ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔəp̚˦˧˥ ʔɓɔŋ˦˧˥]
  • (Saigon) IPA(key): [ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔɓaː˧˧ ʔəp̚˦˥ ʔɓawŋ͡m˦˥]

Phrase

ba ba ấp bóng

  1. (idiomatic) doing something that is futile and pointless

References

  1. ^ Mẫn Nông (2024) “Từ "bóng" đến "gió"”, in Văn hóa & Đời sống‎[1] (in Vietnamese)
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.