Adding Idioms and Popular Expressions to Your Repertoire
Even though Chinese seems like it has absolutely nothing in common with English when you listen to it, especially in terms of pronunciation and tones, it uses distinctive idioms (groups of words whose collective meanings differ from their individual parts) to express specific ideas or situations, just like in English. If you try to translate these idioms word for word, however, you won’t get very far.
For example, if you suddenly announced to your Chinese college roommate
“Wo hui l. yige quan yegv” (waw hway lah ee guh chwan yeh guh; literally:
I’m going to pull an all-nighter), he would be clueless and would begin to question what he was thinking when he agreed to room with a foreigner. Similarly, you’d be just as confused if he broke out with “Wo hui k.i ye chv.” (waw hway kye yeh chuh; literally: I’m going to ride the night train.) Both of you mean the same thing, of course, but he’d start imagining just how heavy something called an all-nighter is to actually pull, and you’d worry about which city he’s going to end up in the next morning. You may even be tempted to join him instead of studying for your exam.
The Chinese language has thousands of idiomatic expressions known as chengyu (chung yew). Most of these chengyu originated in anecdotes, fables, fairy tales, or ancient literary works, and some of the expressions are thousands of years old. The vast majority consist of four characters, succinctly expressing morals behind very long, ancient stories. Others are more than four characters. Either way, the Chinese pepper these pithy expressions throughout any given conversation.
Here are a few chengyu you frequently hear in Chinese:
Mo ming qi miao. (maw meeng chee meow; literally: No one can explain the wonder and mystery of it all.) This saying describes anything that’s tough to figure out, including unusual behavior. Yi shvn zuo ze. (ee shun dzwaw dzuh; To set a good example.) Yi mo yi yang. (ee maw ee yahng; exactly alike) Quan x.n quan yi. (chwan sheen chwan ee; literally: entire heart, entire mind) An bu jiu b.n. (ahn boo jyoe bahn; To take one step at a time.) Hu shu. b. dao. (hoo shwaw bah daow; literally: To talk nonsense in eight directions.) To talk nonsense. Huo shang ji. you. (hwaw shahng jyah yo; To add fuel to the fire; to aggravate the problem.) Yi zhvn jian xie. (ee jun jyan shyeh; To hit the nail on the head.) Yi ju liang de. (ee jyew lyahng duh; To kill two birds with one stone.) Ru xi.ng sui su. (roo shyahng sway soo; When in Rome, do as the Romans do.) Another fact you quickly become aware of when you start speaking with chengyu is that the expressions are sometimes full of references to animals. Here are some of those: gou zhang ren shi (go jahng run shir; literally: the dog acts fierce when his master is present; to take advantage of one’s connections with powerful people) gua yang tou mai gou rou (gwah yahng toe my go roe; literally: to display a lamb’s head but sell dog meat; to cheat others with false claims) da cao j.ng she (dah tsaow jeeng shuh; literally: to beat the grass to frighten the snake; to give a warning) dui niu tan qin (dway nyo tahn cheen; literally: to play music to a cow; to cast pearls before swine) xuan ya le ma (shywan yah luh mah; literally: to rein in the horse before it goes over the edge; to halt) hua she ti.n zu (hwah shuh tyan dzoo; literally: to pain a snake and add legs; to gild the lily; to do something superfluous) hu tou she wei (hoo toe shuh way; literally: with the head of a tiger but the tail of a snake; to start strong but end poorly) chv shui ma long (chuh shway mah loong; literally: cars flowing like water and horses creating a solid line looking like a dragon; heavy traffic)
