The Laowai's Unofficial Chengyu Guide allows users to run Chinese character searches, pinyin searches, and English idiom searches. This page details how to properly use these features.
Enter one to five characters into the search bar without spaces.
Sample searches:
Note that I don't make separate entries for variations of chengyus, so sometimes you'll get taken to an entry that doesn't completely match your search. For example, I have an entry for 千里送鹅毛 (qiān lǐ sòng é máo), but I don't have separate entries for its variations 千里鹅毛 (qiān lǐ é máo) or 千里寄鹅毛 (qiān lǐ jì é máo). So, if you were to search for either of the variations, you'd be taken to the 千里送鹅毛 (qiān lǐ sòng é máo) page. You can then scroll down to see the variations in the entry's "Equivalents" section.
Enter accented or unaccented pinyin with spaces between each syllable. You can enter two to five syllables at a time.
Acceptable searches:
Unacceptable searches:
You can technically search for a single syllable (like "ji"), but the system will take it as a command to search for entries that have "ji" appear anywhere, even if it's in the middle of another word. That is, you could search for "ji," and the system would match it with "jian," "jiu," and so on.
Enter any amount of English words into the search bar, and the system will pick up matching idioms. Please don't add quotes — that will just confuse the system.
Note that the tricky thing about English idiom searches is that there are lots of variations to English idioms, and the system may have difficulty recognizing them because they're not exact matches. For example, it wouldn't recognize that "unable to see the forest for the trees" is the same thing as "unable to see the woods for the trees." If you run into this issue, try entering variations first, and if that still doesn't work, try picking out key words or phrases that remain the same between idioms. Similarities in the example above could be "trees," "unable to see," and "for the trees."
Acceptable searches:
Unacceptable searches:
Note also that the search engine will check search terms against an entry's English idiom equivalents, but as of right now it does not check terms against its English definition. So, searching for the expression "sea of people" will return the entry 人山人海 (rén shān rén hǎi), but searching for the English definition of "vast crowd" will not, even though "vast crowd" is one of the translations of 人山人海.