對牛彈琴 (Duìniútánqín)

[Daimashin]

對牛彈琴 (Duìniútánqín) - A waste of effort to explain.

對牛 (Duìniú) - For cow, 彈琴 (tánqín) - Play the zither.

Once upon a time there was a traveller musician who loved to perform with his zither. One day he was walking along a farm and saw a cow working really hard. He felt pity that the cow had to work so hard. Later in the day, the musician bumped into the cow again but this time the cow was grazing. In order to show his sympathy, the musician decided to play his music for the cow. No matter how beautiful the music was the cow simply didn't care and continued to graze on grass as usual. After a while, the musician finally realised that no matter how good he was, the cow simply won't understand his music.

對牛彈琴 (Duìniútánqín) is used to describe someone that is too stupid to understand and that explaining is just a waste of time and effort. It can also be used as talking to the wrong audience.

Example:

"怎麼講你也不明白簡直是「對牛彈琴」, 白費心機."