Chengyu are traditional idiomatic Chinese expressions and\nconsist of four characters. There are approximately 5000 official Chengyu, but\nsome dictionaries include over 20 000. The idioms mainly originate from ancient\nstories and history and, similar to English idioms they are impossible to\nunderstand, unless you are aware of the context. Here, I have decided to decode\na few of my favourite; giving a literal translation and an explanation of their\nmeaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u5bf9\u725b\u5f39\u7434 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: To play the lute to a cow <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explanation: To address the wrong audience<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u753b\u86c7\u6dfb\u8db3<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: To draw a snake and add feet to it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explanation: To ruin the effect by adding something\nsuperfluous<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u4ea1\u7f8a\u8865\u7262<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: To mend the pen after the sheep are\nlost<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explanation: To lock the stable door after the horse has\nbolted <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u9752\u51fa\u4e8e\u84dd<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: green is born of blue<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meaning: the student surpasses the teacher<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u4e00\u7bad\u53cc\u96d5<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal meaning: To shoot two hawks with one arrow<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meaning: To kill two birds with one stone<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u76f2\u4eba\u6478\u8c61<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: Blind people touch an elephant<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explanation: To mistake the part for the whole<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u8986\u6c34\u96be\u6536<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: Spilt water is difficult to retrieve<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explanation: Things done cannot be undone<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u5b88\u682a\u5f85\u5154<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literal translation: To stand by a tree stump waiting for a\nhare\n\nExplanation: To trust chance, rather than show\ninitiative\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Eloise (Y12) Chengyu are traditional idiomatic Chinese expressions and consist of four characters. There are approximately 5000 official Chengyu,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mandarin-modern-foreign-languages","category-modern-foreign-languages","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}