Fare un buco nell’acqua in Italian
| Literal translation | To make a hole in the water |
| Meaning | To fail at something or to achieve no result |
| IPA pronunciation | /ˈfaːre un ˈbuːko nelˈlakkwa/ |
Fare un buco nell’acqua
To try in vain, to fail
Where does this come from? You can’t really poke holes in water because the surface of any liquid (superficie in Italian) will stabilize and flatten out under the force of gravity. You can try as many times as you like to punch a hole through it, but no matter how stubborn you are, you are doomed to fail. You’re basically trying in vain.
There is also a shorter version as che buco nell’acqua!, which means “what a failure!”.
For example, you can say…
Non possiamo permetterci di fare un altro buco nell’acqua.
We cannot afford to fail again.
Non abbiamo venduto nemmeno un prodotto. Che buco nell’acqua!
We didn’t sell a single product. What a failure!
➡️ Related lessons
- Fare (to do)
- Buco (hole)
- Acqua (water)
- In (preposition)
- Prepositions
- All Italian expressions
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