拔苗助长 - Expressing "spoiling things with excessive enthusiasm"
HSK 6
When we practice for HSK, let’s not forget about important chengyu! 拔苗助长 (bá miáo zhù zhǎng) comes from a story told by a Chinese Confucian philospher Mencius 《孟子》(c. 371 – c. 289 BC). It teaches us patience and not running against the natural order of things, no matter what we do. It’s English equivalent could be: “haste makes waste”.
In classical Chinese, the story reads:
“宋人有闵其苗之不长而揠之者，茫茫然归，谓其人曰：‘今日病矣，予助苗长矣。’其子趋而往视之，苗则槁矣。”
“There was a person from Song who, distressed that his seedlings were not growing, pulled them up to help them grow. He returned home in a daze, saying to his family, ‘Today I am ill because I have helped the seedlings grow.’ His son hurriedly went to check, and found that the seedlings had withered.”
Sample Sentences
虽然他非常想让公司快速成功，但过度干预和强迫进度只会适得其反，简直是拔苗助长。(Although he was very eager to make the company succeed quickly, excessive interference and forcing progress would only backfire; haste makes waste.)
饭要慢慢的吃，学习成绩也要慢慢的提高，不能拔苗助长的不眠不休的练习，反而得不到好效果。(You should eat slowly and improve your academic performance slowly. You can't rush things by practicing non-stop, which will not produce good results.)
急于求成，往往失败我们不能做拔苗助长的蠢事。(Haste often leads to failure. We must not do foolish things like forcing things to happen.)
In a Text
公司为了尽快推出新产品，给研发团队施加了巨大的压力，要求他们在不合理的时间内完成所有开发工作。结果，由于赶工，产品在发布后出现了许多问题，导致用户抱怨不断，品牌声誉也受到影响。公司最终意识到，过度压缩开发时间无异于拔苗助长，反而适得其反。
推出 (tuīchū): to launch
研发 (yánfā): research and development
施加 (shījiā): to apply (pressure, influence)
赶工 (gǎngōng): to rush work
导致 (dǎozhì): to lead to
用户 (yònghù): user, customer
品牌 (pǐnpái): brand
声誉 (shēngyù): reputation
压缩 (yāsuō): to compress, to shorten
无异于 (wú yì yú): no different from, akin to
适得其反 (shìdéqífǎn): to backfire, to produce the opposite of the desired result
To quickly launch a new product, the company put immense pressure on the research and development team, demanding that they complete all the work within an unrealistic timeframe. As a result, due to the rushed process, the product was released with many issues, leading to numerous customer complaints and damage to the brand's reputation. The company eventually realized that excessively shortening the development time was a haste that had led to a waste, and it backfired.
