人是铁饭是钢 Save Sign in to save words Traditional (Taiwan): 人是鐵飯是鋼 rénshìtiěfànshìgāng ㄖㄣˊ ㄕˋ ㄊㄧㄝˇ ㄈㄢˋ ㄕˋ ㄍㄤ one can't function properly on an empty stomach (idiom) an empty sack cannot stand upright Character by character 人(rén)person 是(shì)be 铁(tiě)surname Tie 饭(fàn)cooked rice 是(shì)be 钢(gāng)steel A Chinese word or character, or English Search Sources CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0 pinyinjs, Apache-2.0