10 HSK 6 Chinese Idioms for Essay Writing

Fully display one's skill and ability

Literal: Greatly display one's abilities

To display (大显) one's person and hands (身手) — 身手 is a compound meaning physical skill, the whole body's competence rather than a technique. The phrase belongs to martial fiction, where it names the moment a fighter who has been standing at the back finally moves. Chinese has kept the theatre in it: ...

With great interest and enjoyment

Literal: Mouth watering, full of flavour

津 is saliva, or any moisture that wells up; doubled, 津津 is the mouth watering. With flavour (有味) attached, the phrase describes engagement at the level of the body rather than of the opinion — the reader who has forgotten they are reading, the listener leaning in. That physical basis is why it will ...

Calm and composed; even-tempered

Literal: Heart calm and breath harmonious

A level (平) heart (心) and settled (和) breath (气). The pairing is not decorative: 气 is the moving part of a person in Chinese medicine, and its state and the emotions are treated as one system, so steadying the breathing and steadying the temper are a single operation described twice. Su Shi uses the...

Upright and open; above board

Literal: Bright and open-hearted

Bright (光) and clear (明), open and unhidden (磊落). 磊 is three stones stacked out in the open, and the word keeps that sense of everything being where it can be counted. What the phrase claims is not that somebody has done no wrong but that nothing in their conduct is arranged to be hidden, which is a...

Exceptional literary or artistic talent

Literal: Wonderful brush produces flowers

A collection of Tang anecdotes records that Li Bai dreamed the tip of his brush had put out flowers, and that his gifts were extraordinary from then on. A marvellous (妙) brush (笔) growing (生) flowers (花) locates the talent in the instrument rather than in the labour, which is exactly what a legend a...

Having deep roots and long history

Literal: Source distant, flow long

A source (源) far off (远) and a current (流) that runs long (长). Both halves describe the same river from opposite ends, and what they claim together is continuity rather than mere age: the water arriving now is connected to the spring, and nothing in between has been cut. That is why it is applied to...

Incomparable; unparalleled

Literal: Nothing to compare with

Nothing (无) with which (与) to rank it (伦比). 伦 means a category or a peer group, so the claim is not that the thing is the best but that no comparison class exists for it — there is nothing of the same kind to line it up against. That is why it functions as the top of the Chinese scale of praise. It ...

Easily solved once properly approached

Literal: Split apart upon meeting the blade

With Wu's capital nearly taken, Du Yu's officers proposed halting until the following winter. He answered them in council that the army's might was already roused, and that the thing was now like splitting bamboo: after the first few joints the rest comes apart on meeting (迎) the blade (刃) and falls...

Lifelike; vividly realistic

Literal: Vividly as if alive

栩栩 comes straight out of the Zhuangzi's butterfly dream — 栩栩然蝴蝶也, a butterfly vividly and contentedly itself — and the phrase adds 如生, as though alive. That origin is worth carrying: the point of the dream is that the butterfly did not know it was a man, so the vividness is complete from the inside....

Irresistible momentum; sweeping advance

Literal: Momentum like splitting bamboo

At a council of his commanders in 280, with some arguing that the campaign against Wu should pause until winter, Du Yu said the army's might was already roused and the thing was by now like (如) splitting bamboo (破竹): the first joints resist, and after that the whole length comes apart of its own acc...