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Q: Are Chinese people idiom masters?
I don't know if I've been hanging around an especially erudite crowd, but my Chinese friends seem to have an idiom for this and an idiom for that. It gets me questioning my memory and whether or not I'm daft. It's really unbelievable. Almost any situation that rises up will be met with a Chinese idiom on their part.
Do they have idiom classes at school or something?
Darn my dyslexia! I read the title and confused the 'm' for a 't'. Of course, that made it a much funnier question.
The Chinese love idioms even more than Americans do. They just grow up hearing them and passing them on when the occasion presents itself.
I'm sure you probably use idioms all the time, but are so used to them, you don't realize it. An idiom is simply a cultural phrase where the meaning is derived from the whole phrase and not the individual words. Every language has them, and there are no more in Chinese than there are in English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, etc., etc., etc.
So often, we think that an idiom has to take on a proverbial meaning (being profound, august, or ironic). Not true, it can have a very simple, everyday meaning. Here are some examples:
like clockwork
on the line
the final straw
come rain or shine
over the top
and of course, there are literally thousands more. Are the Chinese idiom masters? Yes, but so is everyone else, when using their native language.
Are Chinese people idiotic bastards?!!! is that what you meant?!!!.......just thought that you might wrote the question wrong....and yes they are idiotic bastards.nothing close to being idiom matsers............they only idiom they got is "No money no honey"...That;s it
I agree with Jihad.......Gihad? Giad.....rosich, idioms are probably just as common in any language, I must say though, when I think of China I can't help but get romantic images of sages saying stuff like "The swallow turns an eye and spies the thorn, and the rose opens gently to the dawn." In London we'd just say, "Here, that bird's looking at your bollocks, I think you're in there, mate."
There are idioms for everything here. It'd be nice if they had any real value (since they're applied so liberally that the idiom's meaning is usually only applicable at a stretch if at all), or were used for a purpose other than when someone tries to make themselves look clever. Making lots of quotes is part of appearing wise, which is part of gaining face. Unfortunately there are many that take it waay too far. I vaguely recall that the former foreign minister spoke using as many idioms as possible. This made most of his speeches unintelligible to anyone outside of China, and actually to a large number of Chinese people too. Given that his role was foreign minister that kinda made him look ridiculous. So yes I think Chinese people are the idiom masters, but whether that should be equated with wisdom or not is an entirely different question.
i think is just a show off to display, especially if the audience is a foreign one, their "chinese" 5000yrs old culture...
Some of the training centers teach idioms and phrases...I know because I had to teach them....I won't mention the school, but the school had a bad reputation and I left that place ages ago....
