The Chinese Idiom for HSK Preparation

When we finish our elementary Chinese learning, we will have mastered the basic Chinese characters. And then, a more complicated unit will come to us that is the Chinese idiom. In this class, I want to talk about one interesting Chinese idiom—“三心二意(san1 xin1 er4 yi4)”.

Do you know the exact meaning of it? It is easy to get the literal meaning which refers to “three hearts and two minds”. By analyzing the literal meaning, we may guess it is roughly equivalent the English phrase “half-hearted or be of two minds”.

Tom is an American student who is taking the AP Chinese Practice. He is making HSK preparation now. One day, he saw this idiom and fell into thought. Why there are three hearts with tow minds rather than two hearts with three minds?

As for this question, I want to say it is a fixed expression, which can date back to a Chinese ancient work “救风尘(jiu4 feng1 chen2)”. In modern Chinese, we just continue to use it. the previous meaning is that somebody is of two minds to do something. We can list some synonymic words here. They are “朝三暮四(zhao1 san1 mu4 si4)”, “心猿意马(xin1 yuan2 yi4 ma3)”, and “见异思迁(jian4 yi4 si1 qian1)”.

However, if we do not connect “三心二意” with the AP Chinese, the phase may have some new meanings. Actually, it can be used to describe an employee’s quality that is needed for the position. “三心” is “责任心(ze2 ren4 xin1), 信心(xin4 xin1), 爱心(ai4 xin1)”, which refer to “responsibility, confidence and love accordingly.” “二意” is “说话有创意(shuo1 hua4 you3 chuang4 yi4) and 做事让人满意(zuo4 shi4 rang4 ren2 man3 yi4)”.

In some specific situations, we have to figure out the specific usage of the phrase so that we can understand the real meaning.

source:  http://smile1xia.weebly.com/blog/the-chinese-idiom-for-hsk-preparation