DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

人生地不熟

Mandarin · pinyin rén shēng dì bù shú

to be a stranger in a strange land (idiom)
in an unfamiliar place without friends or family

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Characters in this entry

人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
生: shēng · life, living, lifetime; birth
地: de · dì · earth; soil, ground; region
不: bù · no, not; un-; negative prefix
熟: shú · well-cooked; ripe; familiar with

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

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Mandarin tones

2–1–4–4–2 · ren2 sheng1 di4 bu4 shu2

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jan4 sang1 dei6 bat1 suk6

Cantonese word readings for 人生地不熟. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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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) to be unfamiliar with the place and the people; to be a stranger in a strange place

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

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