Diesel Dave Posted August 12, 2020 at 05:33 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 05:33 AM Hi friends, I'm an intermediate Chinese student. I'm looking for a textbook, app, website or other learning resource focusing on cheng yu (four-character idioms). Anyone able to help me find something like this? Cheers, D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungouk Posted August 12, 2020 at 10:07 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 10:07 AM Welcome to the forums! You might want to dig around here using the search box which appears top-right if you're using a desktop browser. There are probably better, newer threads but a quick search reveals there's some discussion and links in a thread from 2010 here: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/29431-studying-chengyu/?tab=comments#comment-232443 If you just want to dive in, there's a list of ~260 commonly-used Chengyu over here on the Pleco Forums... I'm not sure if these will work as flashcards or not once imported into Pleco: https://www.plecoforums.com/threads/most-commonly-used-chinese-characters-and-idioms.516/ EDIT: Pleco imports them fine, looks them up in the dictionaries and marks them as "IDIOM". I'm not adept enough with Pleco myself to work out how to make a separate flashcard deck with them in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted August 12, 2020 at 10:24 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 10:24 AM Try searching 成语故事 - there are lots of resources, typically aimed at children. For example: 名落孙山_名落孙山成语故事（典故）-成语故事-七故事儿童网 If you're looking for versions targeted specifically at second-language learners, try searching "chengyu stories" instead. Example (same chengyu): Chinese Idiom – 名落孙山(mínɡ luò sūn shān) Note that many of the most common four-character idioms (乱七八糟、不三不四、胡说八道、自以为是 etc) aren't usually considered chengyu, so they'll be missing from these types of collections, in favor of much less common ones like 孟母三迁. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pon00050 Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:16 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:16 AM I don't know of "the" resource for learning chengyu though. If there is, please do share. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungouk Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:17 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:17 AM More on Pleco... I just noticed this is listed in the 'store' https://store.pleco.com/products.php (note that it's a Chinese-Chinese dictionary). Quote Duogongneng Chengyu Cidian - $19.99 Chinese-Chinese dictionary with detailed information on about 8000 Chengyu. This is a "multifunction"dictionary, so along with definitions it includes synonyms, antonyms, historical quotes, usage notes, comparisons with similar Chengyu, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:38 AM Report Share Posted August 12, 2020 at 11:38 AM 21 minutes ago, mungouk said: Duogongneng Chengyu Cidian - $19.99 I can definitely recommend this - it's great if you're comfortable using monolingual sources. The fact it's in Pleco helps, as each word in the definition is linked to the other dictionaries you have installed. Each chengyu has a definition (often including explanations of individual characters), a source citation in classical Chinese, an example sentence in modern Chinese, and often synonyms, antonyms, and other notes. Example for 手不释卷: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZhangKaiRong Posted August 13, 2020 at 08:38 AM Report Share Posted August 13, 2020 at 08:38 AM 21 hours ago, mungouk said: Duogongneng Chengyu Cidian - $19.99 +1 on this, twenty bucks well spent, it is very useful. I recently got into chengyus, and this is tremendously helpful. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members jinbu Posted August 13, 2020 at 11:30 AM New Members Report Share Posted August 13, 2020 at 11:30 AM Hi Diesel Dave, I can recommend the Routledge “500 Common Chinese Idioms” dictionary, writen by Liwei Jiao. You can also separately download the audio files. I personaly find it very useful. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luxi Posted August 25, 2020 at 02:43 PM Report Share Posted August 25, 2020 at 02:43 PM On 8/12/2020 at 6:33 AM, Diesel Dave said: or other learning resource focusing on cheng yu This bilingual mooc by Sichuan University might interest you: 学成语 知中国 https://www.icourse163.org/course/SCU-1205884803 It runs for 17 weeks starting 1 September. The videos are subtitled in Chinese (simplified) and English. Other Sichuan University moocs I've followed were very well designed and presented, I'm sure this one will be too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diesel Dave Posted August 29, 2020 at 04:57 AM Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2020 at 04:57 AM Thanks everyone for your help! I had a look at all the many sources you recommended. The general wisdom seems to be that chengyu are an indispensable element of advanced Chinese language studies, but that beginners and intermediate learners may find their efforts better spent in conversation, vocab, etc... I like to learn through reading and listening to stories (and there's apparently some science behind that methodology). Knowing the little stories behind Chinese words makes them easier for me to memorize and deepens my understanding of the culture. Cheng yu are a fantastic marriage of history, storytelling, literature and vocabulary. I'm looking forward to diving in in the coming months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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