3. The differences between English and Chinese idioms
English-speaking and Chinese-speaking countries are two different nations, so there exists vast difference between English and Chinese culture and this difference occurs in English and Chinese idioms, too.
3.1 Different living circumstances
Idioms are closely related to people’s work and life. So the idioms have strong national colors. Britain is an island country on the Atlantic ocean, surrounded by the sea, which was once leading the world with its navigation, so lots of English idioms have something to do with navigation and fish. Such as: a drop in the ocean“沧海一粟”; plain sailing “一帆风顺”between the devil and deep sea“进退维谷”; know the ropes“懂得秘诀”; go with the stream“随波逐流”; as close as an oyster“守口如瓶”; steer clear of all doubtful questions“避免一切暧昧的事情”; feel under the water“感觉不适”.
While “China is an agricultural country. The peasants have presented many idioms about farmwork, such as ‘斩草除根’ which is translated literally into ‘to cut the weeds and dig up the roots’, its figurative meaning is ‘to stamp out the source of the trouble’. More examples:
‘瑞雪兆丰年’（a timely snow promises a good harvest）; ‘顺藤摸瓜’ （its original meaning is to follow the vine to get the melon; its extended meaning is to track down somebody or something by following clues ）; ‘捡了芝麻，丢了西瓜’ （its original meaning is to pick up the sesame seeds, but overlook the watermelons; its extended meaning is ‘mindful of small matters to neglect of large ones’ ）”, etc.
Typically speaking, English people use “spend money like water” to describe someone who splashes money on something. While Chinese people say“挥金如土”. “However many idioms concerning boats and water cannot be given the same equivalents in Chinese, such as , to rest on one’s oars（暂时歇一歇）, to keep one’s head above water（奋力图存）all at sea（不知所措）etc”.
Due to the geographical and environmental factors, the bamboo shoots grow abundantly in China, thus, there are idioms concerning bamboo. On the contrary, bamboo doesn’t grow in British islands at all, even the word “bamboo” is a loan one, so that there is no English idioms in this aspect. For example, “the Chinese idiom ‘雨后春笋’is translated into ‘spring up like mushrooms’” [10] in English.
“In Chinese culture, ‘east wind’ is ‘the wind of spring’; summer is always connected with extremely hot or the intense heat, so ‘赤日炎炎似火烧’ ‘骄阳似火’are terms often used to describe summer. While Britain is located in western hemisphere, with north temperate zone and marine Climate, so ‘west wind’ is the symbol of spring. The famous English poet Shirley’s ‘Ode to west wind’ is a praising song of spring. Summer in Britain is a warm and comfortable season, which is usually linked with ‘lovely’, ‘gentle’ and ‘nice’. Shakespeare compare thee to a summer in one of his poems, ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate’” [11]
So different living surroundings may produce different idioms in different language and different culture.
3.2 Different cognitions of things
Because of the differences between eastern and western cultures, people have greatly different cognitions of things, and this exerts a great influence on the differences of the outcome of both Chinese and English idioms.
3.2.1 Different cognitions of animals
English and Chinese belong to two different language families. Chinese belongs to the Han-Tibetan language family. Being limited to the living conditions, climate and so on, several animals find the same environment on which they rely for existence as the human being. These animals and the human beings are interdependent. While the man are the most emotional animals that give the animals different affection, as a result, the symbolic meaning of the animals vary greatly.
The cattle had once done great contributions to Chinese agriculture in history, so
there emerged idioms concerning this animal, such as “力大如牛”，“倔犟如牛”，“鞭打快牛”，etc. For the English, horse is used as an important tool whose merits and contributions are outstanding. Consequently, there are equivalent idioms having the same meaning as Chinese idioms in English, such as “as strong as a horse”, “as stubborn as a mule” and “The horse that draws best is most whipped.” Besides, the British advocate horsemanship. They like raising horses and holding horse-races. Thus there are a great number of idioms concerning horse, such as: “dark horse”, “eat like a horse”, “bet on the wrong horse”, “change horse in mid-stream”, “hold one’s horse”, etc.
In western culture, the cunning fox specially likes eating the goose surreptitiously. If leaving the fox to look after the geese alone, wouldn’t it mean looking for trouble? We have no such knowledge in Chinese. Thereby, the English idiom “set a fox to keep one’s geese”（让狐狸看鹅）would be quite baffling to the Chinese. But there is an identical idiom in Chinese ——“引狼入室”which means the same thing as “set a fox to keep one’s geese”. Both of the two idioms are translated correspondingly and vividly.
It is worth mentioning that, in Chinese’s eyes, tiger is the king of wild animals. It
has rich cultural symbolized meaning, including the commendatory connotation, such as valor, grandeur and might, as well as the derogatory connotation of cruelty, savageness and ferociousness. While in English culture, lion is the king of all animals, consequently, there are obviously much more English idioms concerning lion than the Chinese idioms concerning tiger, so that “we often translate lion into ‘虎’ in English translation, such as ‘a lion in the way’(拦路虎), ‘place oneself in the lion’s mouth’(深入虎穴)”,etc.[12]
3.2.2 Different cognitions of colors
There are three kinds of basic colors: red, yellow and blue. Colors are cognized mainly through the seven kinds of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple in the spectrum. Due to the different countries’ historical backgrounds, geographical locations, customs and traditions, people have diverse cognitions of colors, so the idioms rising under the conditions reflect such regional differences.
Taking “red” and “white” for example, in western countries, red is regarded as brutality and unluckiness. Red means bleeding. So there appears some having derogatory and taboo color words, such as “red skin（对印第安人的鄙夷称呼），red tape（繁文缛节，官僚习气）,in the red（亏损）,out of red（扭亏为盈）, red alert（空袭、紧急警报）, red cock（纵火引起的火灾）, red cent（毫无价值的事物）etc.” [13] While in China, red means luck and joy. There are many Chinese idioms obviously having complimentary sense, such as开门红 (get off to have a good start), 红颜薄命 (a beautiful girl has an unfortunate life), 红运当头(have a good luck), 红光满面 (in the pink), 红男绿女(gaily dressed young men and women), 红得发紫(extremely popular), 红极一时（enjoy popularity for a time）, 红装素裹（clad in white, adorned in red）,etc.
People in western countries look upon white as the symbol of purity, as well as some implications of racial discrimination. The westerners are white people who entrust extremely noble symbol to white. In English there are：white hat（好人），white lies （善意的谎言）， white--headed boy（宠儿），the white hope（带来荣誉的人），white slavery（逼良为娼——西方人认为白种人不能做奴隶），etc. However it is different in China. In Chinese’s eyes, white stands for funeral and revolt, which has derogatory color. For example, there are白日做梦(indulge in wishful thinking), 白费口舌(waste one’s breath),一穷二白(poor and blank),白忙乎(in vain) ,白字连篇(reams of wrong characters), 白云苍狗(white clouds change into grey dogs-the changes in human affairs often take freakish forms)etc.
3.2.3 Different cognitions of numerals
Numeral worship and taboo exist both in eastern and western courtiers, however, the people in the two countries have totally different cognitions of numerals.
In the west, “13” is regarded as an unlucky number, owing to the story in the Bible that Jesus Christ was betrayed by his 13th disciple Judas. “666” symbolizes demon in the Bible. “7” stands for good luck, great prosperity and victory. But there is no particular connotation of “9” at all in English. The examples are: in the seventh heaven（极其快乐）, the Seventh Day（星期六——犹太人安息日）, etc. In China, “13”, “666”, “7” have no special meanings, therefore, there is no taboo usage of them. However, “six”(六)、 “nine”(九) have peculiar cultural connotations to the Chinese people. “nine”(九). means a long period of peace and order or lasting political stability in Chinese traditional culture. The emperors of the past dynasties worshipped “nine”(九), hoping his country could be in great peace and order. There are Chinese idioms concerning “nine”(九), such as “九九归一” ,“九死一生”etc. “six”(六) means that something goes on smoothly in Chinese，there are“六六大顺”“六畜兴旺”etc. Meanwhile, Chinese people place the allegorical meaning on the even number, such as “双喜临门”、“四季发财”、“八面玲珑”etc. “It is calculated that there are far more Chinese idiom using numerals than the English idioms, which is a difficult problem to the translation.”[14]
3.3 Different Religions and Beliefs
Religion plays an important role in the development of the language. Different religions produce different idioms. Buddhism has been transmitted to China for more than one thousand years, which occupies the leading position in Chinese traditional religions.
People believe there is a “Buddha” who can dominate the world and decide everyone’s destine. Many Chinese idioms come form Buddhism, such as “佛口蛇心”、“佛头着粪”、“借花献佛”、“五体投地”、“一尘不染”、“现身说法”、“回头是岸”、“在劫难逃”、“大慈大悲”etc. There are also proverbs coming from Buddhism. For example,“不看僧面看佛面”、 “闲时不烧香，临时抱佛脚”、“跑得了和尚跑不了庙”、“泥菩萨过河，自身难保”、“放下屠刀，立地成佛”、“一个和尚挑水吃，两个和尚抬水吃，三个和尚没水吃”etc. In western countries especially in Britain and America， people believe in Christianity. The Bible has been regarded the classical Christian scripture, which establishes a foundation of western countries’ culture, art and ideology, Idioms concerning the Bible can be found everywhere. For example, “doubting Thomas”（怀疑的托马斯）is an idiom from the Bible now stands for “不肯轻易相信别人的人(people who will not believe in others easily)”. And The idiom “cast pearls before swine”（把珍珠丢在猪的面前） is also from the Bible: New Testament, and now it stands for“not to give the precious things to people who cannot really appreciate it (不要把珍贵的东西送给不识货的人)”or“not to play the lute to a cow (不要对牛弹琴)”. “Go to hell（下地狱去）”is a curse. Others are like “ ‘a lion in the way’, ‘Nobody is born learned, even bishops are made of men.’, ‘It’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.’, ‘Bad priests bring the devil into the church’ ‘Judas kiss’, ‘a dead dog’, ‘ the apple of one’s eye’(掌上明珠) , ‘wash one’s hands of a thing’(洗手不干), etc.”[15]
Besides, there are many proverbs in English based on the metaphors and themes of God and demon. For example: Man proposes, God disposes(谋事在人,成事在天); God helps those who help themselves. (自助者必有天助。); Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost.(人不为己，天诛地灭。)
3.4 Different Historical Allusions and myths
There are lots of idioms coming from historical allusions, myths and legends. The structure of these idioms is very simple but they have profound meaning, so we can not translate and understand these idioms from the literal meaning. It’s necessary for us to learn and understand the English allusion and myths as well as the Chinese allusions and myths. It’s useful to learn about the origin and development of English and Chinese language and culture. For example“东施效颦”it is from庄子·天运and now it means imitating somebody stupidly. “名落孙山”it refers to a person who fail in the exam and is not enrolled.“叶公好龙”means a person who professed love of what one really fears. Other allegorical stories like“守株待兔”、“愚公移山”、“黔驴技穷”、“刻舟求剑”are often quoted and widely loved by Chinese people. The ancient myths and legends also produce lots of idioms. In Chinese, such set phrases as“嫦娥奔月”、“夸父追月”、“画龙点睛”“精卫填海”、“女祸补天”are all pieces of beautiful and touching myths. The proverbs “天冷不冻织女手，饥荒不饿苦耕人”and“雷公先唱歌，有雨也不多”contain the legendary characters.
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