5 · 41 words
Common four-character expressions
Everyday chengyu: the set four-character phrases that turn up in conversation, texts and the news.
A chengyu is a fixed expression, nearly always of four characters, often taken from an old story or a classical text. It is used as one word, and its meaning is rarely the sum of its parts: 画蛇添足, literally drawing feet on a snake, means spoiling something by adding what is not needed. The ones here are not decoration; Chinese speakers use them in ordinary conversation. Learn each one with the kind of sentence it lives in, and never change a character: a chengyu with one character swapped is simply wrong.
The words
This list belongs to Set expressions and written Chinese — five lists and 201 words that can also be practised as a whole.
Practise this list
Multiple choice and gaps, drawn from exactly these 41 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.