{"id":300,"date":"2011-09-24T12:35:50","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T16:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=300"},"modified":"2017-06-09T06:13:39","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T10:13:39","slug":"idioms-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/idioms-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Idioms Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Idioms or \u6210\u8bed\u00a0 (ch\u00e9ng y\u01d4) are very prevalent in Chinese writing and even in common day sayings. Much like idiomatic expressions used in English, the Chinese equivalents are an amalgam of history, cultural influences and scholarly debate, imparted upon Mandarin and Cantonese over thousands of years. Further, because Chinese and English are the two largest vocabulary-based languages in the world, the range of idiomatic phrases and proverbs is especially vast and deep or \u6df1\u523b (sh\u0113n k\u00e8).<\/p>\n

In ancient China, a scholar’s merits were not simply based upon what the meaning of his prose, but also based upon how he would convey it. Poetry and pictographic expressions which highlighted an artistic nature of the literature was also required for a scholar to gain recognition. As a result, these four character idiomatic expressions (which appeared balanced in written symmetry) entered vernacular language \u767d\u8bdd\uff0cand has been spoken since (due to yet again the balance of syllables arising from a four character phrase).<\/p>\n

Most newcomers or intermediate learners of Chinese often have trouble remembering and learning Chinese idioms because of the inherent structure of Chinese idioms. While you may understand characters or words that make up an idiom, non-natives often have trouble making sense of these truncated expressions.<\/p>\n

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The difficulty in learning and memorizing these phrases arises from the disconnect between idiomatic expressions and basic Chinese language structures. Often times, four character idioms are a collection of partial verb-object phrases that have been whittled down to one basic character and combined with three other characters following suit. Not following? Let me explain it this way:<\/p>\n

Take the idiom “practice makes perfect” or \u719f\u80fd\u751f\u5de7 sh\u00fan\u00e9ngsh\u0113ngqi\u01ceo. \u719f\u80fd is not a normal verb-object word in Chinese, but both \u719f and \u80fd are partial verb-object phrases from larger words \u719f\u6089 (to be familiar with) and \u80fd\u529b (ability to do). However, taking their broader meaning together (to be familiarly able at something) the phrase starts to make sense. Further, the two character phrase \u751f\u5de7 is not a Chinese word following the verb-object pattern. Yet separately, \u751f means to create or give birth and \u5de7 means highly skilled or proficient. Now put all four together and “familiarity through doing creates high proficiency” or “practice makes perfect”.<\/p>\n

Here’s another one with a similar meaning, \u52e4\u5b66\u82e6\u7ec3 (q\u00ednxu\u00e9k\u01d4li\u00e0n):<\/p>\n