成语和俗语 Chéngyǔ hé súyǔ — Set Phrases and Sayings

A few, properly

There is a stage every learner of Chinese reaches at which 成语 look like the key to sounding educated, and the sensible response is 王老师's: learn ten, know them completely, and stop. The reason is that a 成语 carries more than a meaning. It carries a register, a typical situation, and often an attitude, and none of that is in the dictionary entry. 一举两得 is safe almost anywhere. 画蛇添足 is a criticism and will be heard as one. 入乡随俗 is what you say about adapting to a place, and is a natural thing for a foreigner in China to use about himself. 破釜沉舟 — breaking the cauldrons and sinking the boats — is about committing irrevocably, and deploying it about a decision to change gyms is funny. The gloss will not tell you that. Ten worth having, with their situations: 一举两得 for killing two birds; 入乡随俗 for adapting; 名副其实 for something that lives up to its name; 半途而废 for giving up halfway, which is what people warn you against; 熟能生巧 practice makes perfect, said encouragingly; 实事求是 for dealing with things as they actually are, a phrase with weight in Chinese political language; 随时随地 anytime, anywhere; 乱七八糟 in complete disorder, which is thoroughly colloquial; 不好意思 which is already in your vocabulary and is technically one of these; and 慢慢来, which is not a 成语 at all and is the most useful phrase in this lesson. The 俗语 are a better investment for a learner and almost nobody tells you so. They are colloquial, so the register risk is low; they are often rhymed, so they stick; they are used constantly in ordinary conversation; and producing one at the right moment gets a genuine reaction, because it signals that your Chinese came from people rather than from a book. 便宜没好货 while examining something cheap, 一分钱一分货 about why you bought the dearer one, 吃一堑长一智 about your own mistake — these are small, safe, and effective. A last thought about why this lesson sits at the hundred mark. The language has a layer of compressed inherited material — stories in four characters, rhymes about money and weather, allusions to texts two thousand years old — and it is live, not decorative: a taxi driver will use 塞翁失马 about your missed flight. Reaching the point where you catch that is not a vocabulary milestone. It is the point at which the language stops being a system you are learning and starts being a thing people have been saying to each other for a very long time, and you are now inside it.