弄巧成拙

nòng qiǎo chéng zhuō

to try to be clever and make things worse

Character by character

弄nòng
play

巧qiǎo
clever

成chéng
become

拙zhuō
clumsy

他想讨好老板，结果弄巧成拙。

He tried to get in with the boss and it backfired.

Tone: negative (criticism).

Clever plans that backfire.

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