learn to walk before one can run

English

Alternative forms

• know how to walk before one can run

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

learn to walk before one can run (third-person singular simple present learns to walk before one can run, present participle learning to walk before one can run, simple past and past participle learned to walk before one could run or learnt to walk before one could run)

1. (idiomatic) Before one can perform a complicated task, one has to learn how to perform more simple tasks.
   • 1998, Alma Thomas, Power Performance for Singers: Transcending the Barriers, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 29:

     Optimal performances can also be used as platforms for achieving greater things in performance later. You might think of optimal performance as learning to walk before you can run or learning the arias before the whole role or running many ten-kilometer races before you try to run a marathon.

   • 2007, David A Herzog, Math You Can Really Use-Every Day, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 1:

     Our mathematics education —particularly our arithmetic education— began with the least important numbers and worked through the years to get us to the more important ones. I guess that follows the theory of having to learn to walk before you can run and defers to the lower capacity of the young child's mind to grasp more complex models.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see learn,‎ walk,‎ before,‎ run.

Translations

Translations

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 唔好未學行，先學走／唔好未学行，先学走 (m⁴ hou² mei⁶ hok⁶ haang⁴, sin¹ hok⁶ zau², literally “don't learn to run before one can walk”)

• Finnish: tyvestä puuhun noustaan

See also

• look before one leaps