Dictionary of 1000 Chinese Proverbs, Revised Edition

by Marjorie Lin, Schalk Leonard

Chinese proverbs offer invaluable insights into both the language and rich culture of China. Assembled here are proverbs that form the basic cultural tokens with which Chinese speakers communicate about issues of love, friendship, morality, life, and human nature. In this new edition, the authors have updated and reformatted their popular reference to 1,000 of the most illuminating and frequently used Chinese proverbs. Organized alphabetically by pinyin Romanization, the proverbs in this volume are not only translated into clear, idiomatic English, but also rendered into both traditional and simplified Chinese. The book is an indispensable tool for students interested in mastering the subtleties and nuances of the Chinese language. New features in this edition simplified and traditional character renderings of each proverb, a new introduction by the authors, an English index of key terms, and a concordance of key Chinese characters, for easy reference.

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2012

Reviews

[libreroaming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dictionary provides both traditional and simplified Chinese. However, does not consistently provide literal translations of the proverbs, and some cases opts for the Western contextual proverb instead of any grounding to imagery/meaning what the proverb may actually convey. One example is a translation into "many a little makes a mickle" for two very different proverbs. A little frustrating because, while the general meaning is the same, in English you could convey it as "whosoever gathers little by little makes it grow" or "little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land" that convey the same overall idea but are dissimilar in their phrasing. Definitely useful as a reference but more annotation would be appreciated for greater understanding.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

almost surprising how many proverbs are similar in different languages.

I guess I really wanted a collection of idioms....they are often more fun.