Cõng rắn cắn gà nhà
Meaning: To bring in an outsider who harms your own people.
Language: Vietnamese
Literally: To carry a snake home to bite your own chickens
Category: Animals
Origin: A Vietnamese image of betrayal — inviting the very enemy that then turns on your household.
More idioms — Animals
- Jakkals trou met wolf se vrou — A sunshower — rain while the sun shines.
- Koeitjies en kalfies — Idle small talk.
- Bobbejaan agter die bult — To worry about troubles that may never come.
- Мува без главе (Muva bez glave) — To rush about chaotically and without direction.
- Гладна мечка хоро не играе (Gladna mechka horo ne igrae) — Nothing gets done on an empty stomach.
- Iti rakom žvižgat — To go to ruin; to fall apart.
More Vietnamese idioms
- Ăn cơm nhà vác tù và hàng tổng — To do thankless public work at your own expense.
- Đứng núi này trông núi nọ — Never satisfied with what you have; the grass is always greener.
- Ăn cháo đá bát — To be ungrateful and turn on those who helped you.
- Nước đổ lá khoai — Advice or effort that has no effect at all; in one ear and out the other.
From our proverbs
- Where God hath His church the devil will have his chapel. — Evil inevitably establishes itself wherever good flourishes, as opposing forces cannot co…
- The nearer the church the farther from God. — Proximity to religious institutions cannot substitute for genuine spiritual devotion or m…
- Pater-noster built churches, and Our Father pulls them down. — Reciting prayers alone, without genuine faith or action, cannot sustain what was built th…