I've told you before that I used to learn Chinese language in China, while I don't particularly like Chinese language, I do like to learn various language. Oh, and for you smartphone user, you may find Pleco Dictionary to be very useful in learning Chinese, I use this application myself, and it help me a lot!
After I learn Chinese for a while, I found out that Chinese people is very brilliant! How awesome is it to be able to draw using one or more character? Look at this exaple:
Can you see the word Měilì de gūniáng 美丽的姑娘 there? It means beautiful girl in English. and the picture represent the word itself! How cool is that?
In this post I want to share with you one of my most favorite thing in Chinese language: chéngyǔ 成语
So, what is chengyu? Wikipedia says that:
Chengyu (simplified Chinese: 成语; traditional Chinese: 成語, pinyin: chéngyǔ, lit. "set phrases") are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four characters. Chengyu were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language, though some dictionaries list over 20,000.
They are often referred to as Chinese idioms or four-character idioms; however, they are not the only idioms in Chinese.
It's an idiom / proverb that consist of only four character! I'm in love with chengyu ever since i first learning it. It's not easy to learn Chinese, they have more than 6000 character which in one character there can be more than one way to read it and more than one meaning, especially if you combine the character, you can get a whole different meaning. Complicated? More than. Even most of Chinese people can't read all 6000 character. My lǎoshī (teacher) used to tell us that we don't have to worry if we can't read several character in an article, the most important thing is to understand the meaning of the article, because most of Chinese people also can't read several character in a whole article.
So, Chengyu, I'll share with you some of my favorite one here:
#1. Suāntiánkǔlà 酸甜苦辣
Character: 酸 (sour) 甜 (sweet) 苦 (bitter) 辣 (hot)
Meaning: the joys and the sorrows of life; experience in life
#2. Luànqībāzāo 乱七八糟
Character: 乱 (disorder; in a mess) 七 (seven) 八 (eight) 糟 (in a wretched or terrible state; in a mess)
Meaning: in great disorder; in an awful mess; at sixes and sevens
#3. Zì xiāng máodùn 自相矛盾
Character: 自 (self) 相 (mutually) 矛 (lance; spear) 盾 (shield)
Meaning: to contradict oneself; be self-contradictory; paradoxically
There's a famous Chinese story behind this idiom, about a man that bragged that he sell a spear that could pierce anything, and a shield that was impenetrable. And then another man ask the seller, what if the spear that could pierce anything try to pierce the impenetrable shield? The seller can't answer this question because it's a paradox.
#4. Huàshétiānzú 画蛇添足
Character: 画 (draw; paint) 蛇 (snake) 添 (add) 足 (foot)
Meaning: to ruin the effect by adding something superfluous; gild the lily
This chengyu is also from a famous story about three man who make a bet to win a wine, they decided to make a competition to draw a snake, whoever can draw a picture of a snake the fastest is the winner. One of the man finish drawing first, and when he see that the other man is still drawing, he add feet to the snake drawing, thus ruin his chance to get the wine.
#5. Sàiwēngshīmǎ 塞翁失马
Character: 塞 (fill in; stuff) 翁 (man; father) 失 (lose; miss) 马 (horse)
Meaning: a blessing in disguise
There's a story about an old man who have a horse, one day his horse run away from his stable. His neighbor all came to his house and say to him, "What a bad luck, your only horse run away from your stable." The old man reply, "We'll see later, maybe there'll be something good that came from this." His neighbor doesn't understand why the old man isn't sad. The next day, his horse came back with another horse following him. His neighbor come again and say, "What a good luck, your horse came back with another splendid horse!" And the old man reply, "We'll see later, maybe something bad will happen from this." His neighbor doesn't understand why the old man isn't happy. The next day, the old man's only son get hurt when trying to tame the wild horse that came back with their horse. And the neighbor come again and say, "What a bad luck, your only son get hurt because of that wild horse." The old man reply, "We'll see, maybe something good will come from this." Again the neighbor is puzzled why the old man isn't sad. Not long after that, a there's a war in their country and every young man have to go to the war. But because the old man's only son is still hurt, he didn't go to the war. All his neighbor say to him, "How lucky you are, our son must go to the war, but your son didn't have to."
The moral of the story is that a bad thing may be a blessing in disguise, and a good thing not necessarily is a blessing.
I hope you find this post useful. See you in the next post!
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