1. Ý Nghĩa
Be barking up the wrong tree: lãng phí thời gian, nỗ lực để theo đuổi, tìm kiếm giải pháp, câu trả lời cho một hành động/vấn đề sai chỗ hoặc với có cách tiếp cận sai.
2. Ví dụ/Examples
Rachel: John might have taken my pen. I’ll speak with him about it.
Mia: Hold on, Rachel. I saw Tom using your pen earlier. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Emily: My boss won’t budge, despite my best efforts to persuade him to give me a raise.
Mark: Maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree. Have you considered talking to the HR department instead?
Detective: Peter has been the subject of our investigation, but every piece of evidence supports his innocence.
Officer: It looks like we’ve been barking up the wrong tree the whole time. We should consider other suspects.
If you exclusively submit applications to large corporations, you might be barking up the wrong tree. Explore career prospects with startups or smaller businesses if those match your talents and interests better.
If you think changing your partner will solve all your relationship matters, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Rather, focus more on communication and compromise.
A student was called out by the teacher for allegedly cheating on the exam, but it turned out that she was barking up the wrong tree because that student had, in fact, been graded the wrong paper.