"like talking to a wall" meaning in English

See like talking to a wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: En-au-like talking to a wall.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} like talking to a wall, {{en-PP}} like talking to a wall
  1. (idiomatic) A futile or unsuccessful attempt at communication due to the ignorance or stubbornness of the other party. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: like talking to a brick wall Related terms: brick wall, fall on deaf ears, go in one ear and out the other Translations (unsuccessful communication): 對牛彈琴 (Chinese Mandarin), 对牛弹琴 (duìniútánqín) (Chinese Mandarin), jako házet hrách na stěnu (Czech), kuin seinälle puhuisi (Finnish), falra hányt borsó (Hungarian), groch o ścianę (Polish), как об сте́нку горо́х (kak ob sténku goróx) (Russian), mar a bhith a' bruidhinn ri each na chadal (Scottish Gaelic)

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for like talking to a wall meaning in English (3.2kB)

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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Are you even listening to me? It's like talking to a wall.",
          "type": "example"
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      "glosses": [
        "A futile or unsuccessful attempt at communication due to the ignorance or stubbornness of the other party."
      ],
      "id": "en-like_talking_to_a_wall-en-prep_phrase-dCdoFJBi",
      "links": [
        [
          "futile",
          "futile"
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        [
          "unsuccessful",
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        ],
        [
          "attempt",
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        ],
        [
          "communication",
          "communication"
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        [
          "due to",
          "due to"
        ],
        [
          "ignorance",
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        [
          "stubbornness",
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        ],
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          "party",
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        "(idiomatic) A futile or unsuccessful attempt at communication due to the ignorance or stubbornness of the other party."
      ],
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          "word": "brick wall"
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        {
          "word": "fall on deaf ears"
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      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "like talking to a brick wall"
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        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "對牛彈琴"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "duìniútánqín",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "对牛弹琴"
        },
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          "code": "cs",
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          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "jako házet hrách na stěnu"
        },
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          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "kuin seinälle puhuisi"
        },
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          "code": "hu",
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          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "falra hányt borsó"
        },
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          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "groch o ścianę"
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          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "kak ob sténku goróx",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "как об сте́нку горо́х"
        },
        {
          "code": "gd",
          "lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
          "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
          "word": "mar a bhith a' bruidhinn ri each na chadal"
        }
      ]
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      "audio": "En-au-like talking to a wall.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cf/En-au-like_talking_to_a_wall.ogg/En-au-like_talking_to_a_wall.ogg.mp3",
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      "tags": [
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        "A futile or unsuccessful attempt at communication due to the ignorance or stubbornness of the other party."
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        [
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        [
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          "communication"
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          "due to",
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        "(idiomatic) A futile or unsuccessful attempt at communication due to the ignorance or stubbornness of the other party."
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      "word": "like talking to a brick wall"
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    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "對牛彈琴"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "duìniútánqín",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "对牛弹琴"
    },
    {
      "code": "cs",
      "lang": "Czech",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "jako házet hrách na stěnu"
    },
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      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "kuin seinälle puhuisi"
    },
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      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "falra hányt borsó"
    },
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      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "groch o ścianę"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "kak ob sténku goróx",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "как об сте́нку горо́х"
    },
    {
      "code": "gd",
      "lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
      "sense": "unsuccessful communication",
      "word": "mar a bhith a' bruidhinn ri each na chadal"
    }
  ],
  "word": "like talking to a wall"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.