熟能生巧

熟能生巧

陈尧咨是宋朝人，他很会射箭，每次都能射到红心，所以大家称他神箭手，他认为世界上没有人能比得上他，因此非常骄傲。

有一天，他正在射箭，有一个卖油的走过来，放下担子，斜着眼看他射箭，看了好久，没说甚么，只是微微地点头。

陈尧咨看到卖油的样子，心里有点儿不高兴，就问卖油的说：“你也懂得射箭吗？看我射得多准！”卖油的说：“这没甚么，只是手熟罢了。”陈尧咨听了，认为卖 油的看不起他，就很生气地大声说：“你怎么敢轻视我的箭术呢？”卖油的不说一句话，随手拿出一个葫芦放在地上，用一个方孔的铜钱盖在葫芦口上慢慢地用木杓 子装满了油滴下去，只见油从钱孔中滴进去，可是铜钱上面一点儿油也没有沾上，这时卖油的才说：“我这也没甚么，只是熟能生巧罢了。”

Practice Makes Perfect

Chen Yau-tz, of the Sung dynasty (sòng cháo 宋朝), was a very talented archer. He hit the bull's eye every time, and so everyone called him "The Magic Archer." Chen Yau-tz felt that he was the best archer in the world, and so he was very proud.

One day, as Chen was shooting arrows, a man selling oil passed by, and stood watching him for a long time. "You know something about archery?", Chen Yau-tz asked the man. "Look at how well I shoot!" The man replied, "That's nothing, all it takes is practice."

This made Chen Yau-tz very angry, and he asked, "Dare you underestimate my skill as an archer?" Saying nothing, the man took a bottlenecked gourd, placed it on the ground, and put a coin with a square hole in the center over the top. He poured toil from a wooden ladle drop-by-drop into the gourd, without spilling a sinle drop on the coin. The man then turned to Chen Yau-tz and said, "That was also nothing. It's just a matter of practice makes perfect."

Thus, the meaning of this idiom is that skill comes from repeated practice.