Studying Chinese Phrases

You may have already attended many relevant Chinese language courses and have a basic knowledge about Chinese language. In this class, let us talk about a interesting topic——some Chinese phrases containing animals.

As we all know, animals can be applied in communication to represent different characters. So what phrases do we have which contain the animals? If you attend this language course, you will find it great fun to learn Chinese characters. And I am going to list some exemplary ones as the followings:

Dog is the animal regarded as the loyal and sincere one by western people. However, it is quite different in China. We will say “走狗(zou3 gou3)” to describe those silly henchmen. And “狼心狗肺(lang2 xin1 gou3 fei4)” is also a derogatory word, which means “brutal and cold-blooded”.

There are some other phrases mainly used to describe a person’s characteristics.

“胆小如鼠(dan3 xiao3 ru2 shu3)” means “as coward as a mouse”.

“力大如牛(li4 da4 ru2 niu2)” is equal to “as strong as a horse”. As a Chinese teacher, I want to remind you that you can not translate it into “as strong as an ox”. It is the difference between Chinese cognition and the western cognition that make them different.

“小肚鸡肠(xiao3 du4 ji1 chang2)” means “extremely stingy and mean”. If someone uses it to describe you, that means you are narrow-minded just as the chicken’s narrow intestines.

“龙(long2)” and “凤(feng4)” are the pair boast most of Chinese people’s admiration, because they stand for auspicious and prosperous things. “龙凤呈祥(long2 feng4 cheng2 xiang2)” is a common auspicious blessing in China. “龙飞凤舞(long2 fei1 feng4 wu3)” is applied to mainly describe the art work such as calligraphy or some master pieces.

Due to the time limit, many other phrases can not be listed here one by one. Studying Chinese phrases by classifying them into this type which contains animals is a efficient and also funny way to learn them.