Murder, wiretapping and blackmail aside, our focus today is actually on a more pedestrian form of linguistic crime: the way many Chinese speakers are managing to butcher mandarin by virtue of not understanding its origins. Specifically, today we focus on five useful idioms that almost every single native speaker now uses to mean the exact opposite of what they actually mean.

This is more difficult show than most of our intermediate lessons, since we spend a bit of time talking about classical Chinese, but if you're looking to push your way past colloquial mandarin into our upper level, we think you'll find this really useful. In addition to covering some extremely useful chengyu, in the next fifteen minutes you'll learn more about their origins than most native speakers ever will, knowledge we expect you to put to good use at your own discretion.
armour.matthew
 said on
August 31, 2012
哈哈，这个播客挺有意思！那么，如果我遇到这些成语的话，我需要记得两个含意吧！另外：

Brendan, when you say "irregardless", that's a little pinch of sarcasm, right? I actually checked the dictionary to confirm that this word is not considered standard. Which raises a point - the more I listen to Popup Chinese, the more gaps I seem to discover in my native language of English!

Brendan
 said on
September 1, 2012
@armour.matthew -- Re: irregardless: yes, it was intended as a dig at all of the people who consider it a solecism. I don't actually have any particularly strong opinion about the word one way or the other: I don't think I'd be likely to use it over the more morphologically transparent "regardless," but I don't consider "irregardless" vs. "regardless" to be a battle worth fighting. Echo's continued misinterpretation of Zhuangzi (as in our recent lesson about 井底之蛙) is a far more pressing issue.
trevelyan
 said on
September 1, 2012
@Brendan -- I just assumed it was a cute Americanism, much like your nation's endearing attempt to make the alphabet song rhyme.
minghan
 said on
September 1, 2012
Hey I'm confused about the definitions of the chengyus you guys went over. In the vocab section 出尔反尔 is listed as "to reap what one sows" but during the popcast it was said that this chengyu is actually used as "to go back on one's word." So does that mean the other definitions for the other chengyus are the technical definitions? If so, how are those chengyu actually used today? Thanks!
minghan
 said on
September 1, 2012
*podcast. ...not popcast hahah. I guess I was thinking of both Pop Up Chinese and podcast while I was typing.
Echo
 said on
September 3, 2012
@minghan,

All the meanings we give in the vocab section are the correct or original meanings. For 出尔反尔, people now no longer use its original meaning. We use it as "to go back on one's word" now. It's not really wrong. For other chengyus, a lot of people use them wrongly, so it's better to use the meaning given in our vocab section.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
zombie_chris
 said on
September 15, 2012
I'm kind of worried that Echo is going to reach an octave that is only audible by dogs trying to keep you two in line in the studio.

Working as an English teacher (part of a deal with 中财 for their Chinese course), I try not to set myself up as an defender of the purity of the English language, and often teach the colloquial - eg. “with whom were you speaking?” versus “who were you speaking to?”. Many teachers take it upon themselves to be arbiters of taste and linguistic conservationists, refusing to explain slang and insisting on correct but essentially unused grammatical constructions. I know that a fine line is walked between those looking for conversational mastery and those seeking to simply pass the HSK, but but I would definitely err on the side of colloquial use rather than clinging to prescribed grammar in a textbook.

Most language trainers agree that if the learners have dealings with native speakers they will not be able to avoid idiomatic language completely. If nothing else, the learners should be able to understand what is being said or asked of them. So, a passive understanding of the most commonly used idioms will undoubtedly be of benefit to them. On the one hand, learners tend to like them as they bring an element of fun and creativity into the lesson. On the other hand, idioms maybe difficult to understand if there is no comparable expression in the learner’s own language and, if they are used incorrectly, can cause the learners to appear ‘amusing’ or ‘sweet’.

I rambled, but hopefully the post made me appear more sober than I actually am. As always, please keep up the good work, Popup Chinese is the perfect antidote to Chinese classes throughout the middle kingdom, and is continually a pleasure to listen to.
matt_f
 said on
July 25, 2013
Brendan was totally g-d***ed right about blackmail vs. extortion.

- Matt
philiphadlock
 said on
January 25, 2016
Thanks for this great lesson. I'm curious about the expression 出尔反尔。Given that 尔 refers to "you," is it possible to use this expression in anything other than the second person? For instance, can I say 他们出尔反尔了？
Grace Qi
 said on
February 2, 2016
@philiphadlock

Of course. 出尔反尔 means one goes back on his/her words. So it can be anyone:)

我／你／Ta／我们／你们／Ta们 出尔反尔, 都可以。