Studying Chengyu

[WestTexas]

I don't really feel like I have that much trouble with them. In fact I feel like as far as recognition goes they are much easier for me to remember than 2 character words. Each Chengyu has a story and if you know the characters and have read the story, it's easy to recall the meaning.

I found the stories from these kids books they sell in China in pretty much any supermarket with a book section. They are to teach Chinese kids Chengyu. Each book will have a bunch of stories, each story concerns one Chengyu. A smaller book costs 10 yuan and has maybe 50 pages, so 20-30 Chengyu. The stories explain the meaning of the Chengyu in a simple way for the Chinese kids. For example, you have 对牛弹琴, to play lute for a cow, also translated as 'to cast pearls for swine'. In the kids book it has a story about, get this, some guy playing music for a cow, and the cow just keeps on eating like it doesn't notice. The man tries very hard to please the cow and it still doesn't notice. It pretty clearly demonstrates the meaning of the Chengyu, which is to do something complex for an unenlightened audience, in other words, to preach to deaf ears or have one's argument or logic fail due to the listeners being stupid. Anyway, it's hard not to remember after reading the story. There are quite a lot of these books, but some of them are curiously difficult while others are quite easy.

As far as using Chengyu in conversation goes, tbh I don't really care. I mean I know it is a good way to impress people, but it seems to me to be more of an advanced skill that I could do without. Maybe after I can watch TV in Chinese without reading the subtitles, read a newspaper at close to native speed, and write with near-perfect grammar, then I will worry about how to best use Chengyu in conversation. Right now it just doesn't seem nearly as important as other aspects of my learning.

[jbradfor]

I'm just happy that recently I've been able to recognize a chengyu when I see it. And by "recognize" I don't mean "understand", I mean "I know those four characters, but they make no sense together..... must be a chengyu!"

[xiaotao]

I have a set of workbooks for learning idioms. I like them because they have a short one to two line definition and two sample sentences, followed by two additional sentences showing the easily confused characters. It's precise and to the point.

[Scoobyqueen]

I have learnt quite a few by just repeating and repeating them, over and over again. Then after they get stuck and you can just say this four syllable word, I have tried to use them as much as I can after that eg in essays, with my teacher, asking people about it, asking people if they think that particular one is common or not. That way you get people to talk to you about it and you get to repeat it. However, I only focus on one at a time. Some get so stuck you know instinctively from context that you can use a particular one.

I try not to put them into mnemosyne as I want to know them by heart and to be able to actively use them (rather than read).

I do not think it's easy though.

[yellowpower]

try the children's books for stories of chengyu, some come with audio or even animation. I like the ones with titles like 'common chengyu', 'everyday chengyu', the only drawback is that most do not have example sentences. However, these children's books do highlight the 'important' or high-usage idioms to focus on, and the language/explanations used is reader friendly.

Like others, I have to constantly review and review...dunno maybe vocab words are easier because of higher frequency usage. Chengyu(s) pack a punch and are very concise, if the other parties understand it.

[luozhen]

I bought a book in the Xidan Xinhua bookstore. It has maybe 200-plus idioms, with an English story on one page and the Chinese story on the other. I left it overseas, but I suspect it's still available. The cover was dark brown and yellow, with no goofy cartoon drawings or anything. It's not a textbook, just the stories. I probably haven't read it in 3 or 4 years, but it really helped me with 古代汉语 this year because most of the lessons were chengyu stories and I could remember them.

[ansileran]

Hi everyone !

I'm digging up this post because people suggested to read children books on Chengyu. I know they exist (saw them when I went to China but wasn't interested in them at the time) but can't find them at the local Chinese bookstore here. I would have to order them and for that, to actually know what to order.

Do you have any good title to suggest ?

Thanks !

[linguaholic]

Hi all

I am wondering if some of you got some useful "hints" on how to understand Chinese Idioms. For instance, in Chinese idioms there is often the character zhi (literary equivalent of de). I know now, that this characters stands for the normal (de) almost in all Chinese idioms. This helped me a lot in understanding certain Chinese idioms.

Maybe word order is also important in Chinese idioms? like the functions of the chinese character depend on a certain word order within a "cheng yu"?

I would be interested to hear how you guys are studying and mastering the meaning of Chinese idioms !!

regards

Marcel

[mtpastille]

Chengyu come from classical Chinese, so if you want to "understand" them you could take a look at a primer on classical Chinese. However, becoming proficient in classical Chinese takes a lot of time, and I don't think it's worth the effort if all you want is to understand 成语. Classical Chinese grammar is awfully/beautifully ambiguous. Instead, I suggest you treat chengyu as four character words. Learn what each character means, try to infer what they mean together and check the dictionary if you're unsure. Create mnemonics and flashcards if you're into that kind of stuff. It'll be the more efficient approach.

[roddy]

Merged a few topics all on the same topic.

[skylee]

Many chengyu actually tell a story, like 孟母三遷, 狐假虎威, 圖窮匕見, etc. Learn the story and you understand the chengyu.

[Wana]

Hey! Not sure if this is helpful since the thread is so old but I'd say learn the most common chengyus, so that if you are spending the time to memorize certain ones, that they will at least be relevant in your daily life. Besides, I have found it to be a good way to remember them, since you'll hopefully actually be using them :) 

I just did a quick google search and there are lots of websites now that will give you a "top list" of common chengyu, with fairly clear explanations of what they mean and sometimes also how to pronounce them. fluentu has some cool lists, like this one: https://www.google.ca/search?q=learn+common+chengyu&oq=learn+common+chengyu&aqs=chrome..69i57.6566j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 

Quora also has some good ones! I recognize most of them on the list and have definitely heard them used in conversations before (including from myself): https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-your-favorite-Chinese-chengyu-%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD-or-idioms-In-which-situations-have-you-applied-them 

Hope this helps! (since this thread is quite old..) :)