不知不觉
- Literal
- not knowing, not perceiving
- Figurative
- Without realizing it, imperceptibly; describing something that happens gradually before one notices.
Where does 不知不觉 come from?
It does not come from a specific anecdote; it is a very common set phrase built from two parallel pairs (不知 "not knowing" and 不觉 "not perceiving") that reinforce each other to stress a complete lack of awareness. The repeated 不…不… pattern is a typical Chinese way of stringing together two related negations. It already appears in older texts, but without an origin story to pin it down; today it is extremely common in speech and the press to say that time or a change slips by unnoticed. Note: 觉 is read jué ("to perceive") here, not jiào ("to sleep").
How is 不知不觉 used? Two examples
- 我们聊得很开心，不知不觉就到了半夜。
We were chatting so happily that, before we knew it, it was already midnight.
- 来中国三年了，我的汉语不知不觉提高了很多。
I've been in China for three years, and my Chinese has improved a lot without my realizing it.
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