Snake’s feet and burning eyebrows

The weird and wonderful world of Chinese idioms

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

If your eyebrows are on fire (火烧眉毛), don’t worry. It just means you are in a hurry. Just what is it about Chinese language idioms that are so weird? Certainly one could argue that all idioms are in fact meant to be a bit strange even within a native language, but there is something slightly mysterious when idioms are translated into another language – and this is not least when translating Chinese language idioms into English language ones.

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