Don’t rush, you’ll just spin circles

Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 @ 6:50 pm by in Culture, Language Views: 863

急がば回れ (isogabamaware)

This is a Japanese expression that literally means, “if you hurry, you’ll go in circles”.

This expression warns us that rather than rushing and doing things in a way that might not be safe, it is best to take your time and do them carefully. In fact, if you slow down and take it easy, you will actually accomplish your task more quickly than you would have had you rushed.

Or put another way, rather than taking a dangerous shortcut to reach your destination, you could get there faster if you took the roundabout way.

What do you think? Is this a good expression to live by?

And, how do you like that giant attention getting image of the characters?

I think maybe it’s too big…

What’s ridiculous is that I actually already introduced this expression in another post a long time ago… I guess I should have taken my time and double checked before writing this.

- Harvey

  • Wim

    Personally I think the image is just the right size to completely capture my attention.
    (especially since i read for a sec “a fish goes in circles”)

    and yes.. I find the expression something to live by though i have a tendancy to forget this good piece of advice :)

  • Anonymous

    Isn’t your explanation, “you could get there faster if you took the roundabout way” closer to the literal meaning than “if you hurry, you’ll go in circles”?

  • http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

    Anonymous: Actually the grammar for this expression is very weird. “急がば” is apparently the old way to say 急げば。So like 読めば would be よばま according to this conjugation rule… But as you can see you can’t even do the Kanji transformation for that with Japanese input on your computer. Anyhow, that would be “if you hurry”. And 回れ sounds like the command form of “to go around”, but it really means “you will go around”. This grammar is very weird. If someone has more examples of this type of grammar I would love to see it!

    Anyway, I think my “literal” translation of “if you hurry, you’ll go in circles” fits.

  • Brenda

    I think it makes a lot of sense. I used to rush everything in life and think of every task and goal as somehting i need to hurry up and get over with, but now I take things slow and I find I get more things done properly and am enjoying life more, and not being so difficult to the people around me.

    Going slow for me means making more memories and letting things happen naturally.

    Thats pretty much the quote I live by today.

  • Brett

    Thanks for this post! I am always interested in learning expressions such as this. It is always so difficult to come across them and to get explanations from Japanese as it’s something they learn growing up.

    I compare this expression to the old, English saying: “Slow and steady wins the race”.

  • Tanaka

    This is my first Reply.

    I often use “急がば回れ”
    It means “if you hurry, you’ll go in circles” and I often use it talking with my friend when I will take an examination.

    But at that time,It means “The short cut is nothing of studying so you must study very hard”.

    So I think 急がば回れ have many meaning each people.

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