Hi everyone!
Welcome back. This is Nico.
In today's video, we'll learn a very commonly used Chinese idiom
The idiom comes in four characters.
Let's break it down.
The first character, fourth tone
means "big" or "important"
As you can see, in the center of this character
you have the character for
which means "person"
With the person at the center
and a stroke crossing the
It just looks like a person stretching his arms out
making himself look big. So,
means "big"
And the second character
fourth tone,
which is a fun word to learn
And I'll tell you a super easy way to remember this one.
As you can see that there's also a
in the middle and four
which means "mouth" surrounding it
With one "big" and four "mouths"
You can imagine a big bowl,
feeding four hungry mouths
Or a useful tool that can help many people.
Therefore,
means "tool" or "utensil"
And here comes the change of tone
The third character
third tone
means "late"
You can see on your left side
there's a character
means "sun"
So when the sun goes down, it gets late. So,
means "late"
Finally, our last character
second tone
simply means "to become"
So what does it mean when we put four characters together?
Let's find out the meaning together
by listening to a really touching story
between two brothers.
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty
There are two brothers.
The older one was a great talent in martial arts
while the younger one was quiet
and didn't get any particular accomplishments when he was young.
So he was always looked down by his friends
and even his closest relative thought
that he was a complete loser.
However, there was this one special guy that thought highly of him.
It was his older brother that told others
"Great talents take time to mature"
It turned out that he was right.
The younger brother later on
was appointed a very important position by the emperor
and made great contributions to his country.
Based on the story,
means "to become somebody, it takes time"
Nowadays, it is often used to encourage someone
who just encountered failure.
For example,
If your friend went to a job interview
but he totally screwed up.
You can comfort him by saying
"Don't be sad, it takes time for a star to shine."
Try using this beautiful Chinese idiom
to encourage your Chinese friends
or the people around you.
I'm sure they will be inspired by this old Chinese wisdom.
That's all for today.
If you enjoyed the Chengyu Series,
don't be shy to hit the LIKE button
and leave a COMMENT
making a sentence using today's idiom
And if you have more questions about this idiom
nǐ de Chéng yǔ lǎoshī Nico
We'll reply to your comments
to clear any confusion you might have.
Thanks for joining me.
I'm Nico.
xià cì jiàn
Bye, bye!