by David Webb

The glory of the Chinese language: the chéngyǔ phrases

There are things I like and things I don’t like about Chinese. Firstly, the overall sound of the language is generally cacophonous and unpleasant. It most certainly does not rival French or Portuguese in terms of beauty. The tones are a problem for learners, and remain a problem to some extent throughout your journey learning Chinese. It is worth briefly outlining this, as this explains why Chinese came to be a language that prefers phrases using two and four characters. I will then argue that the four-character phrases known as chéngyǔ are the real glory of the Chinese language.

The tones are conceptualized on a vocal range of 1 to 5 (1 is a low tone, and 5 is a high tone).

The first tone, represented with a macron in the pinyin transcription system, is a high tone, 5-5 (it starts high and remains high). An example is 妈 meaning “mother”, which is written 媽 in Hong Kong and Taiwan, which use the traditional script (mainland China has simplified more than 2,000 characters). The transcription of this is mā.

The second tone, represented with something like an acute accent, is a rising tone, 3-5 (it starts mid-range and ends high). An example is 麻 meaning “hemp, jute”. The transcription of this is má.

The third tone, represented with an upside-down circumflex, is a falling-rising tone, 2-1-4 (it starts low, moves even lower, and then rises quite high). An example is 马 meaning “horse” (written 馬 in Hong Kong and Taiwan). The transcription of this is mǎ.

The fourth tone, represented with a grave accent, is a strongly falling tone, 5-1 (it starts very high and ends very low). An example is 骂 meaning “to scold” (written 駡 in Hong Kong and Taiwan). The transcription of this is mà.

These are, of course, the tonal values in Beijing, which were adopted in Standard Chinese. Every city in China has its own tonal values, and you can buy books with detailed charts of the tones in each city, but as all children in China learn Standard Chinese, to some extent the dialects are fading.

The large number of homophones

The various characters assigned to each meaning are all written differently. The written language has a clarity that is not present in the spoken language. In spoken Chinese, you can often hear people having to describe which character they are using. For example, quánlì can mean 权利 “rights, entitlement”, or 权力 “power”, or 全力 “with all your might”, all pronounced exactly the same. The written script removes all ambiguity. If you need to emphasize that you mean “power”, you hurriedly explain that you mean 权力 using the lì found in 力量 lìliang, “strength, power”, and all Chinese people make such clarifications in their speech.

An additional problem is that, having lost many phonemic distinctions in Middle Chinese, there are only 416 possible syllables in Standard Mandarin. Some presentations state there are only 406, as some of these are just interjections like 哼 hng “hmph!” Syllables like “stretch” are not possible at all in Chinese. The only consonants that a syllable can end with in the standard language are n, ng and r. There are hardly any voiced consonants in (Standard) Chinese (only l, m, n, ng, r and w). Even if you add in the tone combinations, not all syllables exist in all four tones, and so even counting the tones there are only 1,200 possible syllables. If Chinese were still monosyllabic—which is what the script, which gives one glyph or character for each syllable, would imply—it would be impossible to understand Chinese.

There is a neutral tone—a brief mid-tone used often at the end of a word that is shown by the lack of any diacritic, as in the word 儿子 (written 兒子 in Hong Kong and Taiwan), érzi, “son”, or 号子 (written 號子 in Hong Kong and Taiwan), hàozi, “sort, kind”. This adds very slightly to the possible number of syllables, although I find that people in Southern China are very unclear as to the distribution of neutral tones in Standard Mandarin, so this doesn’t really help much. Not all Chinese people can differentiate between 行李 xíngli “luggage” and 行礼 (written 行禮 in Hong Kong and Taiwan) xínglǐ, “to salute”.

The phenomenon of tone sandhi also reduces the listener’s ability to differentiate between tones. The way it works is that two third tones together become a second tone and a third tone, so 买马, “to buy a horse” (I will no longer give the traditional forms used in Hong Kong and Taiwan), mǎi mǎ, is pronounced identically to 埋马, mái mǎ, “to bury a horse”, i.e. both are pronounced as the latter. Some Chinese people claim to hear a distinction, but academic blind studies have shown Chinese people can only differentiate them 50% of the time, equivalent to random guessing. For this reason, if you really mean “to bury a horse”, it is advisable to use a longer phrase, like 埋葬一匹马, máizàng yīpǐ mǎ.

There are less well-known forms of sandhi. I once bought a book in Shanghai written by a Chinese linguistics professor who stated that three third tones together are pronounced like a second-first-third combination, so 展览馆, “exhibition hall”, is not realized as zhǎnlǎnguǎn, but as zhánlānguǎn. Hardly any non-academic Chinese have heard of this, though, so it is not worth engaging a Chinese housewife who does not analyse her own speech in discussion on this point.

The Chinese retroflexes zh, ch, and sh are pronounced as the palatals z, c and s by half the country; r and y are often confused; h and f are often confused (lǎohǔ pronounced as lǎofǔ); and –n and –ng at the end of a syllable confused by half the country (jin for jing and vice versa). Suffice to say, the 1200 possible syllables cannot always be distinguished from each other.

Classical Chinese was a monosyllabic language. Modern Chinese with a reduced phonemic inventory has evolved to be a bisyllabic language, which improves intelligibility. 老虎 means “tiger”, whether you pronounce it the Standard lǎohǔ (which becomes láohǔ when sandhi  is applied) or lǎofǔ (i.e. láofǔ once sandhi rules are imposed). The syllable 老 means “old”, so this literally means “old tiger”, where “old” is often used to express respect in Chinese, but this is now a standard bisyllabic word that just means “tiger” (it no longer means “old tiger” as such). It should be noted that whereas some Chinese syllables, individual syllables, correspond to 50 or more characters with exactly the same pronunciation, the use of two syllables does not necessarily mean there are no homophones. We saw this with quánlì above. Wénmíng can be either 文明, “civilization”. or 闻名 “to be well-known”, so only the written script is entirely devoid of ambiguity.

This brings us to the issue of four-character phrases. Four-character phrases are 成语, which is pronounced chéngyǔ and literally means “ready-made, fully formed phrases”, set phrases in other words. But this phrase is most often used to refer to idioms that have a little story behind them, known as the 典故 diǎngù or “classical story/allusion”. Usually, you still need to know the characters to understand the idiom, even though four characters are used, because the phrases are very pithy and in some cases the spoken syllables could correspond to a large number of possible written characters.

Four-character phrases with no story

Let’s start with the less interesting four-character phrases that don’t have a story, and that just illustrate the fact that the language now prefers two- and four-character phrases.

大错特错: dàcuò tècuò, “utterly wrong, as wrong as wrong can be”. The literal meaning is “greatly-wrong-especially-wrong”.

国色天香: guósè tiānxiāng, “exceptionally beautiful”, usually referring to a woman. The literal meaning is “the colour of the country, the fragrance of heaven”.

一表人才: yībiǎo réncái, “strikingly handsome”, of a man. I have never had the literal meaning explained to me, but it seems to me to be “a model/exemplary talented person”, i.e. of someone both striking in looks and talented, which may be said to be the masculine ideal.

唇齿相依: chúnchǐ xiāngyī, “mutually dependent”. The literal meaning is “lips-teeth-mutually dependent”. The Western press claims China and North Korea are “as close as lips and teeth”, but this is in fact an ordinary four-character phrase in Chinese and so the relevant sentence should just be translated “China and North Korea are mutually dependent on each other”.

客死他乡: kèsǐ tāxiāng, “to die in a foreign country”. The Chinese were traditionally unwilling to die overseas and leave their bones in a foreign country. This idiom literally means “guest-die-someone else’s-village”. There is no word for “in” here, and the word “guest” here really means “as a guest, as a sojourner”. It is important to point out that these idioms are not in modern Chinese, and there are no little connecting words like prepositions. The connection between words in these idioms sometimes has to be assumed. I remember having tonsillitis in China, and Chinese people telling me, “don’t worry, you won’t kèsǐ tāxiāng” (不用着急,不会客死他乡; búyòng zháojí, nǐ búhuì kèsǐ tāxiāng).

崇洋媚外: chóngyáng mèiwài, “to pander to everything foreign”. This literally means “worship-overseas (things)-fawn on-foreign (things)”. This phrase is used to condemn Chinese people who revere everything that comes from the West at the expense of their own culture.

袖手旁观: xiùshǒu pángguān, “to stand idly by and do nothing”. This literally means “to tuck something in your sleeves-hands-by the side-observe”, i.e. to tuck your hands in your sleeves and stand by and observe. Western academics once claimed this idiom was a device whereby China signalled resoluteness. In the China Quarterly, the journal of the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London (No. 53, Jan-Mar 1973, p97), there was an article entitled “Chinese Press Perceptions of Threat: The U.S. and India, 1962” by Kuang-sheng Liao and Allen S. Whiting, which said “the unique associations of the phrase ‘will not stand idly by’, for instance, requires [sic] close attention because of its recurring use in situations which have been seen by Peking as requiring deterrence of potential enemy activity, beginning with Korea in 1950 and including India in 1962, as well as the use of Thai troops in Laos in 1969”. In reality, this is just an ordinary idiom and not a talismanic phrase, and so in August 2022 when the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, China stated its military “would not stand idly by”, and yet in the event did nothing.

Idioms with classical stories

But the true glory of Chinese is the chéngyǔ that have little stories to go with them. You will be told you don’t need to learn these, but in fact they are used all the time in speech. My dictionary of chéngyǔ has 17,000 entries.

盲人摸象: mángrén mōxiàng: literally “blind-man-feel-elephant”. I think there is some kind of story about a blind man feeling an elephant and not knowing what he was touching. This describes a situation where you are dealing with a problem the contours of which you can’t see. You could translate it “being unable to see the wood for the trees”, but the meaning is broader and includes dealing with incomprehensible problems.

坐井观天: zuòjǐng guāntiān: literally “sit-well-observe-sky” (the phrase doesn’t have any word for “in”). The story is of a frog who fell into a well and every day it looked up, it could only see the same little patch of sky. This means to be blinkered or have tunnel vision or to be narrow-minded.

郑人买履: zhèngrén mǎilǚ: literally “Zheng-man-buys-footwear”. In ancient China, there were many kingdoms, just like England once had Mercia and Wessex. A man of the kingdom of Zheng went to the market to buy a pair of shoes. Before he left home, he carefully traced out his foot on paper or whatever they used then. He got to the market and was about to buy shoes, when he realized he had left the tracing at home. They told him, “so what? You’ve got your feet here! As long as the shoes fit, there’s no problem!” He replied, “no! You’ve got to do things properly”, and went home to fetch the tracing. By the time he got back to the market, the traders were gone and he couldn’t buy his shoes. The meaning is “adhering to meaningless and pointless bureaucratic rules”, just like the man of the Zheng kingdom when he was buying shoes. Box-tickers and jobsworths in England exude the same mentality.

画蛇添足: huàshé tiānzú: literally “draw-snake-add-feet”. The story is of a group of friends competing for a bottle of wine. Whoever drew a snake first would get the wine. One drew a snake and said “look! I’ve beaten you! I even have time to draw some feet on the snake!” He drew two pairs of feet and grabbed the wine. But they said to him, “no! Snake don’t have feet! Once you added on the feet, it was no longer a snake, and so you don’t win the wine!” The meaning is “to destroy something that was going to be good by adding something entirely superfluous”, something you would need a couple of sentences to explain in English.

画蛇点睛: huàshé diǎnjīng: literally “draw-snake-dot-eye”. The story is of someone drawing a snake and with his final flourish he dotted in the eye and completed the snake. The meaning is “to make the final clinching argument, the final thing that ties everything together and brings it to completion”.

卧薪尝胆: wòxīn chángdǎn: literally “lie on-brushwood-taste-gall”. This story relates to King Goujian of the Yue kingdom in ancient China in the 5th century BC. He was defeated in battle by the king of the Wu kingdom and forced to serve as his servant for three years. Upon his release, he imposed privations on himself and did not live a princely life as he planned his long revenge. Ten years later he attacked and conquered the whole of the Wu kingdom and made it part of his kingdom. This refers to someone nursing vengeance over many years, undergoing many hardships, as he plans his final revenge. You could argue that China’s “century of humiliation” since 1841, which is now really close on two centuries, is a long instance of 卧薪尝胆, as China plots its ultimate revenge.

骑虎难下: qíhŭ nánxià: literally “ride-tiger-hard-to get off”. The story is of a hunter who leapt on a tiger’s back and then couldn’t get off for fear of being eaten. This one has actually entered Western parlance too.

卧虎藏龙: wòhǔ cánglóng: literally “sleeping or lying-tigers-hidden-dragons”. This one has become famous in the West as it is the name of a film (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). Yet in fact the correct translation of chéngyǔ is not the literal one. This film should not have been given this English name. If you attend translation courses at university, they teach you translation theory according to which these idioms should not be translated literally. This is because chéngyǔ are used so often in Chinese, it would have a comedic effect to use literal translations all the time. This phrase actually means “to have many hidden talented individuals”. I don’t know if there is a story behind this one or not, but it comes from a Classical Chinese poem, and is used thus: 贵公司真是卧虎藏龙, guì gōngsī zhēn shi wòhǔcánglóng, “your company has many talented people working in it” (literally: your company really is sleeping-tigers-hidden-dragons). As there are no morphologically apparent plurals in Chinese, if you translate this literally, you need to use “tigers” and “dragons” in the plural to bring out the sense more.

同床异梦: tóngchuáng yìmèng: literally “same-bed-other-dreams”. This refers to people living or working together who don’t actually get along or who have other motivations. This has also entered Western parlance as a description of the US-China relationship: the US and China want to get different things out of it, and so there is a fundamental mismatch.

蛟龙得水: jiāolóng déshuǐ: literally “flood dragon-gets-water”. This means something like “to be in your element”, but is usually used of a talented person finding himself in the right environment to develop/display his talents.

守株待兔: shǒuzhū dàitù: literally “guard-tree trunk-await-rabbit”. This is based on a story of a farmer who saw a rabbit die after it ran into a tree by accident. Thereafter he waited by the tree trunk for other rabbits to do so instead of tending to his crops. The meaning is that you need to take the initiative in life and cannot just passively wait for good luck to happen to you.

Using these idioms as any part of speech

Another important point to make is that these four-character phrases with stripped-down grammar can function as any part of speech:

这真是坐井观天: zhè zhēn shi zuòjǐngguāntiān: this really is “sitting in a well and observing the sky”. This uses the idiom as a noun to mean “this is a blinkered approach”.

坐井观天的办法: zuòjǐngguāntiān de bànfǎ: a “sitting in a well and observing the sky” approach to something. This uses the idiom as an adjective to mean “a blinkered method/approach”. The character 的, pronounced de (with the neutral tone), is the attributive particle that turns the phrase into an adjective.

坐井观天地: zuòjǐngguāntiān di: in a “sitting in a well and observing the sky” way. This uses the idiom as an adverb to mean “narrow-mindedly”. The character 地, pronounced di (with the neutral tone), is used to create adverbs.

我们不能坐井观天: wǒmen bùnéng zuòjǐngguāntiān: we cannot “sit in a well and observe the sky”. This uses the idiom as a verb to mean “we cannot be blinkered/proceed in a blinkered way”.

坐井观天!: zuòjǐngguāntiān!: you can also use it as an exclamation, throwing out the idiom as an expression of disgust at blinkered behaviour.

It is difficult to write a comprehensive account of these chéngyǔ, because there are thousands that are widely known, but it can be seen from the above how expressive and creative the Chinese language is. These are not used for comedic effect in Chinese as such, and China’s leaders often give speeches using 10 or more chéngyǔ in a row, making a smooth translation difficult. Nevertheless, learners of Chinese get great pleasure from chéngyǔ, in a way that is quite unique to a study of the language.