The Similarity and Discrepancy Between English Idioms and Chinese Idioms

Idioms are the important part of a language. As a language form, idioms has its own characteristic and patterns and are used in high frequency whether in written language or oral language because idioms can convey a host of language and cultural information when people chat to each other.

Each nation has its own language? among which idiom is the essence and treasure, and has strong cultural characteristics. Because of idiom's advantages, having a long history, and a profound moral and strong expression. Idioms often have strong national color and local color.

As to English and Chinese idioms, English idioms mainly include:(1) set phrase, idiomatic phrases such as "to have one's head in in clouds", "the man in the streets"; (2) proverbs such as "many men, many minds", "No man is born wise or learned";(3) common sayings "to charge someone an arm and a leg", "going banana"; (4) allusion such as "much cry and little word ", "skeleton in the cupboard";(5) slang "slang off". Chinese idioms generally include:(1) set phrase especially the four-word set phrases "????"?"????"; (2) proverbs "?????,?????"; (3) common saying "?????, ?????";( 4) allusion "????"; (5) a two-part allegorical saying "?????-????", and so on.

The British live on sailing and fishing, thus there are numerous idioms related to sea fishing, such as "to beep ones head above water" "to know the ropes; " to be over head and ears in debt". In china ,people often praise a man for his good ability in a small village as "???????", but English people praise that man as a big fish in a small pond. The Chinese set phrase "????? " (sturdy grass withstands high winds) means that strength of character is tested in a crisis and adversity is the measure of a man. There have more similar idiom like this, good pilot is not known when the sea is calm and the water is fair. (????????????????). The Chinese idiom "????" (to plough mulberry field and repair the house before it rains) implies that people should make enough preparation before something changes bad. The similar English idioms is " while it is fine weather, mend your sail"???????. As England is an island country, English people are fond sea. They established a dose connection between their life struggle and sea. So you could get many idioms related to sea from their talking.

A Language is not only the means by which people exchange their views each other, but also the medium which human beings reflect the subjective thoughts towards the objective world. Different nations have different living-surroundings and customs, For example, the Chinese translate the idiom "????" as " to shoot two hawks with one arrow", but the English say "to kill two birds with one stone". Viewing from a different angle, such different expression toward one same idiom reflects the habit difference of each nation. The westerners are deeply interested in watching horse racing. Therefore,