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言行不一

Mandarin · pinyin yán xíng bù yī

(idiom) to say one thing and do another

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Characters in this entry

言: yán · words, speech; speak, say; Kangxi radical 149
行: xíng · go; walk; move, travel; circulate; Kangxi radical 144
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
一: yī · one; a, an; alone

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–2–4–1 · yan2 xing2 bu4 yi1

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) one's actions do not match up to one's words

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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