Monday, 24 February 2014

Confucius says

jǐsuǒbúyù wùshīyúrén
This is a saying from the Analects of Confucius. If you want to know more about it, here's the sentence explained. The first column is the text in classical Chinese, the second column (the coloured one) is the translation of the single characters in modern Chinese, and the third is the translation in English.
"Do not do to others
 what you do not like done to yourself"

                                                    (Confucius, Analects)

Monday, 3 February 2014

Chinese Idioms Special 4: One horse takes the lead

  The year of the horse has just begun: Happy new year of the horse to everyone!
 
   And here it is: another Chinese Idioms Special:

yī mǎ dāng xiān
   This four-characters idiom  means "to gallop at the head", "take the lead", "be in the forefront", "to be the first to take the enemy or to do work". It is used to indicate that this time it's the turn of the year of the horse. 

   But, this idiom is part of a eight characters saying:

yī mǎ dāng xiān, wàn mǎ bēn téng

And here is the full idiom with pinyin and word by word translation:

   It means that, "when one single horse takes the lead in battle, ten thousand horses follow, going full-steam ahead".

   I hope you like this content, feel free tu make suggestions! ^_^
   See you next post!