刻鹄类鹜

词语解释

刻：刻画；鹄：天鹅；类：似，像；鹜：鸭子。画天鹅不成，仍有些像鸭子。比喻模仿的虽然不逼真，但还相似。

英语翻译

to aim to carve a swan and get a semblance of a duck (idiom); to get a reasonably good, if not perfect, result; to fail utterly in trying to copy something