指望(zhǐ wàng) - to count on, to look to in Mandarin

指望 (zhǐ wàng) is to count on somebody or something to come good. It is stronger than a wish, because you have arranged your plans around it: the farmer 指望 the rain, the parent 指望 the son, the company 指望 next quarter. It also works as a noun, where 有指望 means there is still hope and 没指望 means it is a lost cause.

Watch how often it turns up negated. 别指望 don't count on it is far more frequent than the positive, and it carries a shrug: you are being told to stop pinning your hopes there. Learners who only ever meet it in that phrase sometimes assume the word itself is negative, which it is not.

The line against 希望 is worth drawing. 希望 is a hope you hold yourself, and it can be about anything, including your own actions. 指望 leans on someone or something outside you to deliver. 我希望学好中文 is fine; 我指望学好中文 is odd, because there is nobody else in the sentence to lean on.