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What is a Chengyu?

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IN THIS LESSON
ID: 0853 Intermediate
Take 5,000 years of linguistic history and ancient literature... throw in a few snakes, frogs, and fanciful tales. Mix in the odd digit for good measure. What do you get? Cryptic Chinese idioms. Now, we're not saying they're all as easy as 'horse horse tiger tiger,' but at least there's that one to get some mileage out of. Now listen to this podcast, and avoid being 'stupid lips stupid tongue.'
Wed Apr 16 2008 | Jenny , John
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Detailed Vocabulary
Each lesson has it's unique vocabulary and will provide you with definitions and recordings so you can practice the pronunciation. You will also be able to grasp the core material of a lesson at a glance. Here we're showing you the Simplified Chinese version.
SIMPLIFIED PINYIN ENGLISH  
成语 chéngyǔ idiom
乱七八糟 luànqībāzāo in a mess
日常 rìcháng day-to-day
以为 yǐwéi to think mistakenly
啊，这么多成语！太乱七八糟了！怎么办？
ǎ ，zhème duō chéngyǔ ！tài luànqībāzāo le ！zěnme bàn ？
Ah! So many chengyu! What a mess! What should I do?
别担心，日常生活不需要那么多成语，知道几个就好。比如乱七八糟。
bié dānxīn ，rìcháng shēnghuó bù xūyào nàme duō chéngyǔ ，zhīdào jǐ ge jiù hǎo 。bǐrú luànqībāzāo 。
Don't worry, in everyday life you don't need to know very many chengyu. If you know a few, it's enough. For example, 'what a mess.'
我还以为四个字的都是成语，结果好多只是普通词组。
wǒ hái yǐwéi sì ge zì de dōu shì chéngyǔ ，jiéguǒ hǎo duō zhǐ shì pǔtōng cízǔ 。
I thought that four words together were all chengyu. It turns out a lot are just popular sayings.
成语都是固定的，不能随便改。
chéngyǔ dōu shì gùdìng de ，bùnéng suíbiàn gǎi 。
All chengyu are fixed. One can't just change them around.
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