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Welcome to Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Ye Honglin with Steve here in the studio.
Hello, Steve.
Hey, thanks for having me again.
Always, always a pleasure.
Doing Takeaway Chinese is fun because we are able to talk about the things that we're quite familiar in life.
Yet the expressions or the way of saying them, and even sometimes the forming of certain word can be, you know.
Quite surprising from a linguistic point of view.
I would agree with that.
Yeah, sometimes it makes sense.
Sometimes it requires a little further explanation.
Like 水果.
Right.
A watery result being fruit.
Yeah.
Because the fruit is very water.
That one, I needed a little bit more explaining.
Yes, but...
That's the fun thing from the words, from the expressions.
We get to know how people understand the world using that language.
I've heard a theory saying that for those people whose native language does not have tense, for example, in English, you have past tense, you have present tense, you have future tense.
And in Chinese we don't really have a structure separating those things, things differently, or have different format or version of the verb suggesting it's for future or for the present or for the past.
And I've heard a theory or there has been this one study showcasing that In Chinese, for example, people tend to save a bit more money because they do not separate present from the future.
Oh, interesting.
I've never heard that before.
And in English, on the contrary, because you have very specifically a future tense and feels like you know, today and tomorrow there's a line between and I have to seize the moment enjoy life.
And if I have to... take a loan to spend some money today.
It's tomorrow's problem.
I do not really care.
I don't know how... Makes Western people sound incredibly financially irresponsible.
I don't know how scientific the result is, but I think it's a fun theory.
I know what you mean.
Yeah no, I didn't know that about Chinese culture, that there's no real separation from the future and the present.
So what that means is We put reference words in the sentence without changing the format of the verbs.
For instance, I say 我明天去, it's exactly like 我, I, 明天, tomorrow, 去, go.
I don't say I will go tomorrow.
The go is the same or the q is the same q I use for present tense.
So the word tomorrow is the q that you're speaking about the future.
Clear enough for us.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That's very efficient.
Yes, it's efficient.
And I find it easier to learn for those who are, you know, studying the language.
And it makes me realize that English is a little redundant sometimes at times.
Because i will go tomorrow, i'm making you well no okay, yes and no, because it means there's some intent for the future, but there's no mention of when the future, at what point in the future.
So tomorrow is still in need yeah, so english is okay still.
I guess i think every language has its fun characters, and one thing i noticed recently is that in chinese well, in Any language,
There are definitely a lot of words, nouns specifically for body parts or for your organs.
Of course, you need nouns for that.
Sure.
But in Chinese we have a lot, a lot of sayings, idioms and traditional sayings or proverbs related to these.
I don't know, how often do you see the word mouth or eyes in English idioms?
We can talk about it today.
Yeah, I'm sure we can think of a couple of examples, because in English, and I think probably in almost every language, There's a lot of expressions related to the human body.
Yes.
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Let's start from the most common organs.
When I teach my kid, I start with the ones on your face, because it's easier to point at and you can touch your, for example, your eyes and touch your kid's eyes.
Touch your eyes or your children's eyes.
Just point at it so he understands.
Right, I know.
And it's fun to do that.
And for our eyes, in Chinese, it's 眼睛.
眼睛.
Yes.
So 眼 already is your eye.
My feeling is that it's the central point of your eye.
It carries the meaning that by pointing at it, the shiny part, the essence of it.
But together, 眼睛 is your eye.
And we have the Chinese idiom 画龙点睛.
Yes, it's a Chinese idiom.
And there is a story behind it saying that there was this very famous and very good painter in ancient China.
And he's really good at basically drawing anything.
It's very vivid.
He used his brush pen to draw.
And one day people say why is that?
That in all of your paintings, the dragon which is long, by the way you paint 画龙, is painting a dragon?
Why is that all of the dragons that you painted have no eye?
I mean, there's a hole there, but you never give it the final touch in the eye.
What happened?
Why?
And he said, I couldn't do that because my paintings are so vivid.
If I point, which is 点, the central point, of the eye there.
If I finish painting the eye, the dragon would be so vivid that it comes to life and fly away.
And the friends would not believe him.
So he finished painting, painting the final several stroke of the eye of the dragon, and the dragon really come to life and fly away.
That was the story and that is why 画龙点睛 draw the dragon and then 点 is point at the eye or finish.
Drawing the eye means that finish your final, but very, very vital touch.
So when can we use that expression?
You can use it as, for example, in a meeting and someone said the most important words and you can say oh, that speech was a 画龙点睛 speech.
That was the most important one.
It points out at the central theme of today's event.
Or maybe you can say, or in an article, there are one sentence that is the most important.
It might not be carrying the major proportion of it, but it's the most important.
And that's 画龙点睛.
Yes.
So the reason I'm sharing that is 眼 your eye is relatively neutral or a general common term, whereas 精 carries the essence of it, kind of feeling.
Okay.
So when you say that particular story, is that an expression that comes up a lot like in those situations?
In relatively official situations.
I don't think in Like oral language or in everyday life.
It's that common.
But it's quite common in Chinese.
Understood.
That's 眼睛.
And 鼻子.
鼻子.
That's your nose.
And 耳朵.
耳朵.
That's your ear.
Okay.
耳朵.
And mouth would be 嘴.
嘴. Or 嘴巴.
No, you do not have to do that.
My son does that.
That's why I did that.
Stop trying to teach me to talk like a baby.
No, I know I have to do it now.
Okay, so 嘴, that's the third tone.
And 巴 there is the light tone.
So 嘴巴.
And those are the common ways.
We mentioned in Chinese, in Mandarin, we like two syllable words.
But in ancient days, there were one syllable words or one character words.
There were a lot of those.
And that is why in a lot of Chinese idioms they still use the one single character word to represent it because it's easier.
We like four character idioms and you want that idiom to carry as much information as possible.
That is why there's also 眼睛 was 目.
What do you mean?
眼睛 was 目。 眼睛 is still 目。 目 is the one character way to talk about eye.
Oh, okay.
目。 目。 And 耳朵 is 耳。 I see, I see, 耳。 鼻子, 鼻。 嘴巴。 嘴。 Or 口。 口。 口 is a hole or a gate, a something.
Or an entrance, 入口。
Yes, 口, 入口.
For instance, in Chinese we have a saying 病从口入或从口出。 病 is disease 从 is, from 口 is your mouth and 入 is enter.
That is why entrance is 入口, whereas exit is 出口, especially in a stadium.
You want people to.
You'll see that sign right.
Yes, yes.
So, 病从口入。
That means disease will come from your mouth.
It means that if you eat something bad, you might catch a disease.
So you need to make sure it's clean and make sure the food is good without it expired or something.
Is there any metaphorical meaning for that?
Yes, there's a second part.
The second part is 或从口出。 或 means something bad that happens to people.
And 从 again, from 口出。.
Mouth is out.
So if you say something wrong, something bad might happen to you.
If you accuse somebody of things they didn't do, they might come and find you and confront you.
If you uh, spread a rumor, it causes problem.
Okay right, it's a fun way to think about the world, right?
Yeah, so you use that expression when someone is accusing you of something and you want to say like, Be careful.
That can happen.
Or you want to describe the situation where somebody accidentally said something wrong.
It can be a secret that should not be shared.
That's what I was going to say.
Or somebody's gossiping.
Yes.
Then you can say that then too.
Yes.
You can say it directly to those who are making trouble with his words.
Or you can gossip about other people gossiping and causing problems.
It's just Chinese idiom.
I got it.
It's a fun one.
And the reason I am also sharing about 目 being your eye and 耳 being your ear is because there's another idiom, 耳聰目明.
It's a very important one because there are so many other expressions related to this one.
To start with, 耳 is your ear.
聰 means you can hear clearly.
And in Chinese, if someone is having problems hearing and even deaf, you say 失聪, losing 聪. No, 聪 is the Chinese character.
So if you're losing the 聪 thing in your life, it means that you're losing the ability to listen very clearly.
Okay, so we use that when people are kind of not paying attention.
Tension no no no, it's really talking about a physical medical situation.
I'm just saying this character is representing being able to hear very clearly, the ability to hear, the ability to hear.
Well yes that's, if you say it means this person cannot hear, and the move we know is, i mean, can be bright, And we believe that if your eyes are very bright and shiny and you can see things very clearly, even very far, it's 明.
明. So 失明, losing the bright, you're losing the ability to see.
And that's a literal meaning.
Yes.
So 失聪 would be deaf.
失明 would be blind.
Blind?
Blind.
Okay.
Right?
So our 聪慕明, if this person can see very clearly, can hear very clearly, you're describing someone who is, to start with, can see and hear very well, but also you're saying he or she is very aware of the surrounding area.
They're very sensitive in a good way, not that emotionally sensitive, but very having the ability to know about the surroundings quite well.
And that's how you form that word.
And I'm mentioning this because if you put 聰明 together, the ability to hear and the ability to see, very well and very smart.
聰明 is smart.
Okay, I see the connection there.
聰明.
聰明 means smart. you're smart.
You're smart.
You're aware of things.
Intelligent and you know stuff.
Okay.
Because I didn't used to draw the connection among all these things until I started to study the languages and learning the languages.
It's a fun thing in my opinion.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
And when you hear the logic behind it, It makes it easier to remember and easier to understand.
Yes.
And we already know that.
That's the thing.
In Chinese, because there are different ways to address the same thing.
You would see that being represented or being used in other fixed phrases or idioms.
Remember not to change them, not change it to the word that is usually interchangeable in other situations.
For example, we talked about 嘴 being your mouth and 口 being also your mouth.
In this specific Chinese idiom, 七嘴八舌, 舌 is your tongue, 舌头.
Okay, 舌头.
舌头 or 舌, that's your tongue.
嘴 we know is mouth.
Seven mouths and eight tongues.
Guess what it means.
Seven mouths and eight tongues means you eat very well.
It means... you're having a very lively conversation or everybody's talking together.
That also makes sense.
Yes, right?
It's just very loud and a lot of people talking, not much of an order you can also talk about.
Uh, in this meeting you know everyone's talking but they're not, you know, making that much sense or they're not having a effective result after the discussion, because everyone's talking, everybody's having a different conversation at the same time.
Yes yes, like a dinner party like that.
Yes okay, and then another one.
Another chinese idiom Zhong, is the three 人 中, so three 人, meaning the mass, a lot of people.
口, we know that's also mouth.
一 is one.
词 is one saying or one speech or one idea, one way of believing in something or expressing something.
And that means people are drawing a conclusion.
They are making a consensus.
They believe in the same thing.
People believe all of the people, they're having the same idea about one thing.
What context would you use that?
One, you're saying that, wow.
Like we all agree?
We all agree.
And my point, my initial point about these two idioms was that you cannot change anything the character in one idiom to another, character that you think is the same thing.
Yeah, because you can have different words for the same body part, but you can't use those interchangeably in the idioms.
Because an idiom is an idiom.
Yes, precisely.
Got it.
So those are some body parts or some organs that in Chinese that are frequently used in idioms.
There are so many.
Is there anyone in English, for example?
Let me see if I can find a Chinese equivalent.
Well, I want to go further down the body all the way to the bottom to talk about dancing or the inability.
Okay.
To dance.
Two left feet.
I have two left feet means I can't dance.
You see the logic there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you have that kind of expression in Chinese?
Not really.
Really?
We do not have an expression specifically talking about being bad at dancing, but we do have one talking about being not very coordinated with your body parts, in the sense that we say 同手同脚。 同手同脚。 同 is the same.
手 is your hand.
脚 is your foot.
So 同手同脚 means when this person moves his left foot and left hand together and then right hand and right foot together.
You know very clumsy.
I think you just described my dancing style.
That's my best move.
Okay, so 同手同脚, that would be talking about this person being not... Lack of coordination.
Okay, let me go back up.
To the top of the body then.
How about this?
An eye for an eye.
Ah, we have that.
Which is revenge.
We exactly have that.
We say yi yan huan yan, yi ya huan ya.
Oh, that's quite long.
One more time, please.
It's not that.
Well, we already know yan is your eye.
Yan jin.
Yan jin, yeah.
And yi is with yan, eye, huan, give back, yan, to your eye.
Eye for an eye.
Literally eye for an eye.
It's the same thing.
But.
We also say 牙还牙 and 牙 is tooth.
So 牙还牙, give back a tooth for a tooth.
So an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Yes.
Here's a question.
When you say that expression, do you say the full expression?
You can also just say 牙还牙 or just 眼还眼.
Oh, because it's exactly the same.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Except people usually, I don't know.
I think that's true.
People usually only say the first part of the expression, an eye for an eye.
But the full expression is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
That's very interesting.
Right?
Yes.
How did that happen?
I will check and see.
Which language is learning from which one.
Yeah, who borrowed from who.
That's fun.
How about this one?
Do you have an expression talking about when people are very close to each other or when they take really good care of each other?
We have a saying of 肝膽相照.
肝膽相照.
So 肝 is liver.
膽 is gut.
Because in the human body, the gut and the liver are quite close together.
They're, you know, neighboring organs.
Friends.
Yes.
And 相照 is 相 means each other.
It carries a mutually kind of feeling.
And 照 is 照, which is take care.
So 肝胆相照 means that you're very close and you take care of each other and you see through each other's liver and gall.
That's a direct translation, but actually means to show utter devotion to a friend and to take care of each other, to have each other's back.
Chinese is often, I would say most times, very poetic and very pretty.
But to say, I love you like my liver loves my gut.
Isn't the most poetic or beautiful expression I've heard.
If you don't like that one, we have another one.
We say 唇齿相依。 唇齿相依。 唇 is our lip.
齿。 is 牙齿, that's your teeth.
So 唇齿相, again, that's the reciprocal kind of character.
一 is 一唇, so together.
So 唇齿相依 is they're together, they take care of each other.
唇齿相依, we are the kind of relationship that we're, to start with, very close geographically or distantly speaking, we're very close.
And at the same time, we should be taking care of each other.
Because we are close geographically.
Yes, like we live next door.
Yes, so we should help to take care of each other.
Yes, the thing is is saying it's kind of like describing that we're having this relationship, that we have been taking care of each other, have each other's back, supporting each other for a long time, so it can say that this friendship is we've had this really good friendship, whereas is describing it's like you're explaining to your neighbor we should take care of other, we should have each other's back because we're just really close.
Yeah, can you say that to a co-worker?
Yeah, you kind of can, but it's really drastically describing your relationship.
Oh, it's too, it's too much.
It's a bit too much.
I think i i've seen this being used in chinese martial art novels because in those novels they you know, they They also liang lei cha dao, which is another idiom describing that I take care of my friend, even if in the situation where I need to put a knife in between my ribs.
Let me tell you, I don't have any friends like that.
And that's, you know, liang lei cha dao, you just have a friend. go through your ribs.
I understand.
It's very like... Drastic.
Yeah, I will protect you.
Yes, like that.
And 肝胆相照 is a bit, you know, extreme like that.
That would be hilarious if you said that to your co-worker.
And 唇齿相依 can also be used to describe two countries.
They're really close to each other, which means there can be some you know frictions between neighboring countries.
But we say 我们的关系, our relationship, 唇齿相依, when... can't really live without the other.
We should really be caring and be nice to each other, which is why there's another one.
There are so many, so many idioms.
There must be countless, right?
And the reason I'm mentioning the other one is because it's really closely related to 唇齿相依 because another idiom is 唇亡齿寒.
So 唇 again is your lip.
亡 is dead.
齿, teeth or tooth.
寒, cold.
So if there's no lip, The teeth must feel cold, which makes a lot of sense.
And this is saying that if the fence is gone, the garden will be exposed.
If you lose one party, the other party will not be in a very preferable situation or environment, which means that they should take care of each other.
I can't live without you?
A little bit, but not that romantic.
Not that dramatic?
Yeah.
Trying to think.
Of a situation.
Because I always want to know, right?
I always want to know which scenarios I can use.
Use it.
Yes, yes.
唇亡齿寒。 Because I was about to go to Yushun and say 肝胆相照。 肝胆相照。 Yeah, I was going to say 肝胆相照。 You can say 我们是肝胆相照的朋友 and scare him.
I will always protect you, you should.
Yes, like that.
Yeah, that would be weird.
So for this one, your teeth will get cold if you have no lips.
I understand what it means.
Like you won't function as well if the other is not around, isn't around.
Oh, by the way, i think these are more used for scenarios of neighboring countries instead of people.
You, you still, you kind of can like it's a bit drastic, it's a bit, But for countries it makes a bit more sense.
When you're talking about international relations, for two neighboring countries, you say 我们的关系唇齿相依 一衣带水 唇齿相依 We're really close to each other.
There's only a river parting both of us, where we share the same river, and we should be nice to each other because we're like lips and teeth.
One will not be that happy without the other.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I understand.
But that one you don't, you wouldn't use it about.
You know, like if your co-worker is leaving the company, then you wouldn't.
You wouldn't say, because in English you would say like oh, it's not going to be the same without you, which is kind of what we're talking about here.
Yes, but maybe no.
OK, because they're implying that with you going, I'm going to die.
That's not the same as won't be the same without you.
Yeah, right.
That's like saying, I will cease to exist.
Since you're leaving.
So I'm accusing you for doing something horrible to me.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's a bit weird.
But there are many, many, many more fun idioms in this regard.
And hopefully, if you have learned one phrase, fun expression, one very interesting Chinese idiom related to body parts or organs that you want to share with us, please leave that in the comment area.
Let us know which one is your favorite organ-related Chinese.
Can we say to our listeners, we can't live without you.
Without you, we will cease to exist.
Do not threat our listeners.
It's not a threat.
It's a compliment of sorts.
It's it is a compliment.
Well, let me just say it in English then.
Thank you as always for listening to Takeaway Chinese.
Without you, we don't have a great show.
Yes, and that's totally true.
Okay, and totally acceptable for broadcasting.
Yes, yes, much much better.
And thank you so much for listening to this episode of Takeaway Chinese.
Please let us know if you've enjoyed the show.
And again, what is your favorite Chinese idiom, related to Oregon or not?
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