The Laowai's Unofficial Chengyu Guide is intended to address a perceived gap in English-language chengyu materials. It is currently and will always be free, and I do not earn a single cent off of any part of this site.
I'm a native English speaker who graduated with a degree in Mandarin Chinese and obtained
ACTFL superior language proficiency in reading and speaking.
This website was borne out of my resentment towards chengyus and my desire to continue to
improve my language skills. As a beginner and even
as a more advanced student,
I was always frustrated by how little sense chengyus seemed to make (I mean, how does "horse horse
tiger tiger" mean "so-so"?!). Then one day,
when my class was learning the chengyu 画蛇添足 (huà shé tiān zú), my laoshi explained that lots
of chengyus came from a story — kind of like how the English expression "cry wolf" came from a
story. My mind was blown, and I went looking for resources that could help me get over my
chengyu-related confusion by teaching me the stories behind them. Unfortunately, I couldn't
find any good free resources in English, and after asking around, the conclusion seemed to be that no such
resources existed.
Fast forward a few years, and I was out of school with a job unrelated to Chinese. I needed a way to
keep up my Chinese skills, and for a while I made do with reading books, watching shows, and generally getting as much contact with Chinese as I could in my English-speaking home environment. Eventually, I came across a truly bewildering chengyu, and after feeling my usual frustration, I abruptly wondered whether
anyone had built the chengyu resource that I'd wanted in undergrad. It turns out no one had, and I realized that translating the original Chinese of the chengyu stories would be a great way for me to maintain my language skills and learn about Chinese culture. As such, I decided to create this resource.
These translations are my own work. No translation(s) may be distributed, replicated, copied, altered, or in any way used for commercial purposes. Those wishing to use my translations for non-commercial purposes may do so without permission, under the condition that they give credit to this site, include a link to the chengyu entry page, and indicate if they have altered the content in any way.
Information about scholarships, domestic study programs, and study abroad programs was obtained without permission. I am happy to remove information upon request from the website owner/webmaster. Please contact me here.
As mentioned above, I am a native English speaker, and while I meticulously research all of the dictionary entries on this website to ensure their accuracy, language mistakes do happen. If you locate one, or if you feel something needs to be added or removed from a specific entry, please let me know, and I'll take a look. Thank you for helping make Chinese learning accessible to everyone.