500 Common Chinese Proverbs and Colloquial Expressions: An Annotated Frequency Dictionary

The 500 proverbs and colloquial expressions collected in this book provide a precious window on Chinese culture, as well as an invaluable aid to learning the language. The book is an immensely useful reference toward understanding the Chinese mind, for both the learner and the teacher. W.S-Y.Wang, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley; Academician at Academia Sinica; Editor of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics

It is an extraordinary dictionary with a creative and effective glossary that includes stylistic-register usages and historical resources. It is composed, for the first time, by first rate experts in the field. This dictionary will serve not only for Chinese learners and teachers, but also professionals who are interested in Chinese proverbs. Shengli Feng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This book is a valuable resource I would recommend to any serious learners of Mandarin Chinese at intermediate level or above. It is essentially two books in one: with a Pinyin index, a stroke index, and a word index, this is an easy-to-use reference dictionary, while with two typical authentic examples for each of the 500 suyu items in the dictionary arranged according to their frequency of use, including their Pinyin glosses, literal translations, functional translations as well as usage guides and cultural notes, the book provides an excellent reader suitable for independent study. Dr Richard Xiao, Director of Lancaster University Confucius Institute

With copious examples and annotations, this collection of colourful expressions is bound to be an enriching addition to any learner's library. Zheng-sheng Zhang, Editor, JCLTA

In any language, proverbs and colloquial expressions are among the most difficult to grasp. Jiao (Univ. of Pennsylvania; coauthor with C. C. Kubler and W. Zhang, 500 Common Chinese Idioms, CH, Oct'11, 49-0607) and graduate student Stone are to be commended for their undertaking. For this excellent work, 500 Chinese proverbs and colloquial expressions were selected, based on frequency of use. Gathered from a survey of some 900 university students in different regions of China, they are presented in a user-friendly format: the term in simplified and traditional Chinese, its Pinyin Romanization with tone markings, explanation of the term (often including a functional translation that is an English proverb or colloquial expression), two bilingual conversational examples with Pinyin notations, and brief notes on usage and tone (humorous, neutral, slightly derogatory, derogatory). Entries include not only time-honored proverbs, but also new expressions that came into being only in recent years. Included are fine indexes by Pinyin, strokes, and Chinese words. This is a valuable resource for intermediate and advanced learners of Chinese. As a side note, the functional translations are an excellent feature for Chinese learners of English. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. Choice

500 Idioms and 500 Proverbs are groundbreaking in their overall design and stand out due to the authors' meticulous effort. They are tailored for intermediate to advanced learners of Chinese and have set high standards for similar books in the years to come. I hope to see more such reference works from these authors. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association