Definition

1. Noun:
   • Fish and water: The literal meaning refers to the two separate entities of fish and water.
   • A close, inseparable, and mutually beneficial relationship: A metaphorical meaning describing a bond as essential and interdependent as that between fish and water. This is the primary and most common usage.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Literal):
  • Môi trường sống của sinh vật bao gồm cá nước và cây cối. (The living environment of organisms includes fish and water and trees.)
• Noun (Metaphorical):
  • Quân với dân như cá với nước. (The army and the people are like fish and water.)
  • Mối quan hệ cá nước giữa lãnh đạo và nhân dân là rất quan trọng. (The fish-water relationship between the leadership and the people is very important.)

Advanced Usage

• "tình cá nước": Literally "fish-water sentiment/feeling," used to describe a deep, inseparable bond, often in a poetic or emotional context.
  • Họ có với nhau một tình cá nước sâu nặng. (They share a profound fish-water bond with each other.)
• The phrase is almost always used in the comparative structure "như cá với nước" (like fish with water) to emphasize the inseparability of the relationship.

Variants and Related Words

• Gắn bó (adj/verb): To be attached, closely connected. A common synonym for the metaphorical sense of interdependence.
• Khăng khít (adj): Intimate, very close (describing a relationship).
• Mật thiết (adj): Close-knit, intimate (describing ties or relations).

Synonyms

• Quan hệ cộng sinh (n): Symbiotic relationship.
• Gắn bó máu thịt (idiom): To be bonded as flesh and blood; inseparable.

Related Idioms

• Như cá gặp nước: Literally "like a fish encountering water," meaning to be in one's ideal element, to thrive perfectly in a situation.
  • Với công việc mới, anh ấy như cá gặp nước. (With his new job, he is like a fish in water.)
• Cá chậu chim lồng: Literally "fish in a bowl, bird in a cage," meaning to be trapped or confined, lacking freedom. This idiom presents a contrasting image to the natural freedom implied in "cá nước."

1. Fish and water; close relationship
   • tình quân dân cá nước
     the fish-water relationship between the people and the army