

ChengYu: 三生有幸 Meaning

Ru-Ping Chen | January 28, 2016 | | 0 Comments


Traditional: 三生有幸

Simplified: 三生有幸

Pinyin: sān shēng yǒu xìng


三生: three lifetimes

有幸: blessing

This idiom typically describes an individual, situation, or other noun that bears a great deal of luck; literally, three lifetimes of blessing. Typically, the idiom describes the fate behind meaningful relationships: a sort of “I’m so lucky to have met you!”


One day as a man walked through the market, he heard a salesman selling spears and shields. The salesman said, “No spear in the world can pierce my shields!” Right after, the salesman said, “No shield in the world can block the strength of my spears!” The man asked the salesman, “What would happen if I used your spear to stab your shield? What would happen then?”

The salesman did not know how to answer the man’s question. From then on, people have used 自相矛盾 to describe a person who exaggerates the severity of a situation or a person who tells a story that contradicts itself.


  1. 我能与你相逢真是三生有幸。
    I’m incredibly lucky to have met you.
  2. 如果能遇到知己，便是我三生有幸
    If I could develop an incredibly close relationship with a friend, I would be incredibly lucky.






Ru-Ping Chen

Ru-Ping Chen

Ru-Ping Chen is a contributing writer at TutorMing. She has always loved doing research into her Chinese heritage, so she decided to attend the University of California, Berkeley to double major in Business and Chinese, focusing in Chinese language and history. Her other interests include reading Western Classics, teaching herself Chinese poems, and learning other East Asian languages.

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