1. He will choose his son， not his painter.

1. He will choose his son, not his painter.

2. 『伍 』

2. "Wo" (This is a Chinese character, and its English translation depends on the context. It could mean "two" if it's used as a numeral, or it could be the surname "Wu" if it's a name.)

3. 男人无妻不成家，女人无夫浪淘沙。

3. A man without a wife is not a family, and a woman without a husband is tossed by the sands of time.

4. 女大四，没意思。

4. The fourth year of a girl's college life is boring.

5. 中文成语虽以四字句为常态，也不乏较长的句法。例如五字的“无巧不成书”、“物以稀为贵”。又如六字的“无所不用其极”、“神不知，鬼不觉”。七字句最多，因为可用诗中名句，甚至杯筊的签诗也是七言：俗话便多“真金不怕火来烧”、“不到黄河心不死”之句。至于八言，像“成事不足，败事有余”或“成也萧何，败也萧何”，其实还是以四字句为基调。

5. While Chinese idioms are generally composed of four-character sentences, there are also longer syntactic structures. For example, the five-character phrases "No coincidence makes a story" (无巧不成书) and "Things are valuable because they are scarce" (物以稀为贵). There are also six-character phrases like "Go to extremes without any restraint" (无所不用其极) and "God does not know, ghosts do not know" (神不知，鬼不觉). Sentences of seven characters are the most common, as they can use famous lines from poems, and even the poems written by cup-bones (杯筊) are in seven-character lines: common sayings often include "Real gold does not fear the fire" (真金不怕火来烧) and "My heart will not die until I reach the Yellow River" (不到黄河心不死). As for eight-character phrases, such as "Not enough to achieve success, but more than enough to cause failure" (成事不足，败事有余) or "Success is due to Xiao He, failure is also due to Xiao He" (成也萧何，败也萧何), they still maintain the basic tone of four-character sentences.

6. Heart evil is a thief， mouth greedy is a matchmaker.

6. The heart's evil is a thief; the mouth's greed is a matchmaker.

7. Buying houses and looking at walls， marrying wives and looking at mothers.

7. Buying houses and inspecting walls, marrying wives and examining mothers.

8. 我另有一本书，名叫《井然有序》，收集的都是为他人所写的序言。这四字成语原封不动，但“序”字的意思却扩大了。我的散文集《日不落家》，书名所套的“日不落国”之句，不是中文成语，而是一句英文，说大英之为帝国，殖民地遍布全球，阳光照处，必有英属领土。一九九七年我家四个女儿，分别住在加拿大、美国、英国、比利时，而我们夫妻住在台湾，所以我们余家也称得上是“日不落家”了。

8. I have another book titled "In Order," which collects the prefaces I have written for others. The four-character idiom remains unchanged, but the meaning of the character "序" (preface) has been expanded. The title of my collection of prose, "The Never-setting Sun Home," which incorporates the phrase "The Never-setting Sun Country," is not a Chinese idiom but an English phrase. It refers to the British Empire, whose colonies were spread across the globe, with the sunlight shining wherever there was British territory. In 1997, my four daughters were living in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, respectively, while my husband and I lived in Taiwan. Therefore, our entire family could also be called a "Never-setting Sun Home."

9. 早期我的散文兼容英文句法，单行多于骈行，较少四字成语或四字句型。后期则有意“去英文化”，不但句子较短，而且骈散交错，因此四字字型增多。评论我散文的学者，不少人肯定我的后期而质疑我的早期，恐怕这也是一大原因。

9. In the early stages of my prose, I incorporated English syntax, with more single-line sentences than parallel ones, and fewer four-character idioms or four-character sentence patterns. In the later period, I intentionally "de-Westernized" my writing, not only making the sentences shorter but also interweaving prose and parallel structures, which led to an increase in four-character patterns. Many scholars who commented on my prose tend to affirm my later work while questioning my early work, and I suspect this is also a major reason.

10. 必要有的工具： 金山词霸，里面有一个屏幕取词功能，如果你浏览英语网页的时候，遇到不认识的词，只需要把鼠标放到单词上，它就会显示英语的发音及音标，以及关于这个单词的详细讲解．

10. Necessary tools: Kingsoft Dictionary, which includes a screen capture feature. When you browse English web pages and encounter words you don't recognize, you just need to place the mouse cursor over the word, and it will display the English pronunciation and phonetic symbols, as well as a detailed explanation of the word.

11. 以下且从我前后期的文章里，各引一段作为对照：

11. Below, I will quote a passage from each of my articles from the past and present as a point of comparison:

12. 在结构上，骈行的四字成语，往往将两组同义字或反义字拆开，交错搭配。例如“千军万马”，原意只是“千万军马”，极言其多，但拆开了交叉重组，便成对仗，而且平平仄仄，顺口悦耳，美学结构于是完成。如果拆开后配成了“千马万军”，就变成了平仄仄平，读不顺了，不成美学。同样，“千山万水”改成“千水万山”意义上并无差别，但平平仄仄的美学就破格了。所以后面这些四字成语都用这种原理形成：

12. Structurally, parallel four-character idioms often disassemble groups of synonymous or antonymous characters and interlace them. For example, the idiom "thousand armies and ten thousand horses" originally meant merely "thousand and ten thousand horses," emphasizing its vast number. However, when disassembled and reorganized in an interlaced manner, it becomes a pair of antithetical sentences, with even and uneven tones, easy to pronounce and pleasant to the ear, thereby completing the aesthetic structure. If it were rearranged as "ten thousand horses and thousand armies," it would become "even tone, uneven tone, even tone, uneven tone," making it difficult to read smoothly and losing its aesthetic appeal. Similarly, changing "thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers" to "thousand rivers and ten thousand mountains" does not change its meaning, but it breaks the rule of even and uneven tones in terms of aesthetics. Therefore, these four-character idioms are all formed using this principle:

13. 姑做婆，闹不和。

13. The mother-in-law treats the daughter-in-law poorly, causing discord.

14. Strike while the iron is hot（打铁趁热）

14. Strike while the iron is hot (Strike when the iron is hot)

15. A generation without a good wife， three generations without a good son.

15. A generation without a good wife; three generations without a good son.

16. 买马不买缰，娶妻不问娘。

16. Don't buy a horse without a bridle, and don't marry a wife without asking her mother.

17. Buy a horse without rein， marry a wife without asking a wife.

17. Buy a horse without a bridle, marry a wife without asking for a wife.

18. 第三个条件是悦耳，也就是说来顺口，所以用字必须单纯，音调必须响亮。为了顺口，音调在响亮之外更要前呼后应，你抛我接。例如，Little strokes fell great oaks（浅砍千次，巨橡不支）呼应全在押韵的strokes, oaks。又如，A stitch in time saves nine（乘早缝一针，到头省九针）呼应则在半谐音（assonance）的time, nine。再如，Neither rhyme nor reason（不可理喻）则用头韵（alliteration）来互答。

18. The third condition is that it should be pleasant to the ear, meaning it should be easy to pronounce, so the choice of words must be simple and the tone must be loud. To be easy to pronounce, the tone should not only be loud but also echo each other, with you throwing and me catching. For example, "Little strokes fell great oaks" (Little strokes, great oaks fall) echoes in the rhyme of "strokes" and "oaks." Another example is "A stitch in time saves nine" (A stitch in time, saves nine), where the echo is found in the half-rhyme (assonance) of "time" and "nine." Furthermore, "Neither rhyme nor reason" (Neither rhyme nor reason) uses alliteration to answer each other.

19. Wife is young， Ermai is old.

19. The wife is young, Ermai is old.

20. 古人之言，或言简意赅，或深入浅出，或音调响亮，或结构匀称，或形象鲜明，历千百年而不衰，反而愈说愈顺口（愈写愈顺手），乃成为成语。 目前我们每天出口的成语，有许多早已脱离了上下文，变成了独立的词句，就算不知出处，也无妨碍。许多人没有读过《论语》，照样能说“道听途说”、“言不及义”、“以德报怨”、“以文会友”、“文质彬彬”、“慎终追远”、“见仁见智”、“当仁不让”、“有教无类”、“割鸡焉用牛刀”、“小不忍则乱大谋”、“人无远虑，必有近忧”。同样的未读《老子》的人照样会说“天长地久”、“金玉满堂”、“出生入死”、“大器晚成”、“受宠若惊”、“和光同尘”、“玄之又玄”、“小国寡民”等四字成语。其实有不少成语本来并不像现在这样顺顺当当的四字一句，例如“和光同尘”，本来是“和其光，同其尘”，而“道听途说”本来是“道听而途说，德之弃也。”但时光如河，语法如沙，日磨月磋，竟把一切都磨去了棱角，只留下光润圆滑的四字语法，那么顺口又那么自然，像满滩的卵石。

20. The words of the ancients, some concise and profound, some simple yet profound, some with sonorous tones, some with balanced structure, and some vivid in imagery, have stood the test of thousands of years and have not faded. Instead, they have become more and more fluent to say (and write), and have turned into idioms. Nowadays, many of the idioms we use every day have long since drifted away from their original context and become independent phrases, and even without knowing their origin, it doesn't matter. Many people have not read the "Analects of Confucius" but can still say "gossip heard on the road," "words that do not touch on the essence," "revenge with virtue," "making friends through literature," "polite and refined," "being cautious at the end and cherishing the past," "seeing virtue in different ways," "not yielding to virtue," "teaching without discrimination," "using a bull's knife to kill a chicken," "not being able to endure a small matter can lead to chaos in a great plan," and "if a person does not plan for the distant future, they will definitely have near-term worries." Similarly, people who have not read the "Tao Te Ching" can still say four-character idioms like "the sky is long and the earth is vast," "a house full of gold and jade," "to live and die," "a great vessel is late in coming to maturity," "being surprised by favor," "being one with the dust," "mysterious beyond description," and "a small country with few people." In fact, many idioms were not originally as smoothly four-character phrases as they are now. For example, "being one with the dust" was originally "being one with its light, one with its dust," and "gossip heard on the road" was originally "gossip heard on the road, the abandonment of virtue." But as time flows like a river, grammar like sand, it has worn away all the edges, leaving only the smooth and round four-character grammar, which is so easy to say and so natural, like pebbles on a beach.

21. Practice makes perfect（熟能生巧）

21. Practice makes perfect (The more you practice, the better you get.)

22. “惟成言之务去”，是散文大家韩愈的主张。 敏捷的作家要活用成语而不拘泥于成语，就应该悟出如何因势导势，借力使力，以我之四两，拨彼之千斤。 活用成语，就如向传统借本钱，加些巧力，来赚创造的利息，其妙正如活用典故，务必化古为今，推陈出新。如此移花接木，读者见了，似曾相识，就如见到熟人的孩子，认得出很像他父亲，却另有自己的几分可喜。

22. "Only to eliminate what is redundant" is the proposition of the master of prose, Han Yu. For an agile writer to skillfully use idioms without being confined by them, they should understand how to guide the trend with the trend, and use force with force, leveraging my own four ounces to move a thousand pounds of the other. Skillfully using idioms is like borrowing capital from tradition, adding some ingenuity, to earn the interest of creativity. Its charm is just like skillfully using allusions, which must transform the ancient into the modern, and discard the old to create the new. In this way, when the reader sees it, it seems familiar, just like seeing a familiar person's child, recognizing that it looks very much like his father, but also has its own charming aspects.

23. There is no matchmaker in the world， and there is a discontinuity in people's roots.

23. There is no matchmaker in the world, and there is a discontinuity in people's roots.

24. 买屋看墙，娶妻看娘。

24. When buying a house, inspect the walls; when choosing a wife, consider her mother.

25. 四字成语或四字句型，盘踞中文已久，不但下笔好使，更且出口畅顺，已经成为语法的一大基调，何况其中还有不少迄为民族智慧或民俗世故的载体，有些来头很大，有些出处不明，所以不但读书人善于驱遣，就算江湖市井之流也会引用几句。

25. The four-character idioms or sentences have long occupied a place in Chinese language. Not only are they effective in writing, but they also flow smoothly when spoken, having become a major tone of grammar. Moreover, many of them carry the wisdom of the nation or the worldliness of folk customs, some with great origins and some with unknown sources. Therefore, not only are scholars adept at using them, even people from the streets and alleys are likely to quote a few.

26. One swallow does not make a summer

26. A single swallow does not make a summer.

27. 有些民族的想法虽然跟我们不同，但他们的成语我们读来仍会发会心之微笑，感到新颖有趣。例如：

27. Although the ideas of some nations are different from ours, their idioms still bring us a heartwarming smile and a sense of novelty and fun when we read them. For example:

28. 心邪做贼，嘴馋做媒。

28. The heart is a thief, the mouth is a matchmaker.

29. 夫妻不和，奸人来乘。

29. Discord between husband and wife, and the unfaithful come to take advantage.

30. 『陆 』

30.『Land』

31. “千眄万睐”是四字成语的新铸，形容玉匠在真苦瓜与玉雕苦瓜之间反复比对，务求将苦瓜的灵魂注入白玉。最后两行的“是瓜而苦”与“成果而甘”，必须用文言无可再简的句法，来逼出“生命赖艺术以升华”的信念。而此一生死以之的信念，更有赖“瓜、苦、果、甘”四个字交相呼应的对仗与双声，才能坚持而达到结论。如果依一般新诗的稚嫩句法，把最后两行写成：“一首歌，咏生命曾经是一只苦瓜／被永恒引渡，变成了甘果”也算不错了，但与文言的四字句法相比，就显得太松、太浅了。

31. "千眄万睐" is a newly coined four-character idiom, describing the jade carver's repeated comparisons between real bitter melon and jade-carved bitter melon, striving to inject the soul of the bitter melon into white jade. The last two lines, "是瓜而苦" and "成果而甘," must employ the unabbreviated syntax of classical Chinese to evoke the belief that "life relies on art for its sublimation." This belief, which is a matter of life and death, depends on the interplay of the four characters "瓜、苦、果、甘" in their corresponding and alliterative forms to sustain and reach a conclusion. If, following the naive syntax of contemporary poetry, the last two lines were written as: "A song, singing the life that once was a bitter melon / Led by eternity, transformed into a sweet fruit," it would also be acceptable. However, compared to the four-character sentence structure of classical Chinese, it seems too relaxed and superficial.

32. Husband and wife are often noisy and neighbors laugh.

32. The husband and wife are often noisy, and the neighbors laugh.

33. 慌不择路，贫不择妻。

33. In times of panic, one does not choose the path; in times of poverty, one does not choose a wife.

34. 最后一例不免令人怀疑，因为英国并无老虎。说不定这格言是传自中国。亚里士多德的名言：“一只燕子还不算夏天；一个晴日也不能算。”辗转传后，变成了四国的格言；只是英文与西班牙文仍保留“一燕不成夏”的原意，法文与意大利文却变成了“一燕不成春”了。下面依次是英、西、法、意的原文：

34. The last example is undoubtedly suspect, as there are no tigers in Britain. It is possible that this maxim was transmitted from China. Aristotle's famous saying, "One swallow does not make a summer; one bright day does not count," after being passed down through the ages, has become a maxim in four countries; however, English and Spanish still retain the original meaning of "a single swallow does not make summer," while French and Italian have become "a single swallow does not make spring." Below are the original texts in English, Spanish, French, and Italian, in order:

35. 为了写这篇文章，我曾回顾自己的文体诗风，发现这四字句法，不论是单行或骈行，对我的语言风格都颇有贡献。我曾说自己的语言是“白以为常，文以应变”，意思是用白话作基调，而酌用文言来变调，来调整弹性、速度、口吻与场景。 所谓文言，不必高古深奥，但求稳健精简，不必华辞丽采，但求言不虚发，辞无浪费。

35. In order to write this article, I reviewed my own style of poetic prose and found that this four-character syntax, whether in single-line or parallel lines, has made a significant contribution to my language style. I once described my language as "using plain language as the foundation and classical Chinese to adjust tone, elasticity, speed, tone, and scene." By "classical Chinese," it is not necessary to be ancient or profound, but it should be stable and concise; it does not require ornate language, but it should avoid empty words and waste of expression.

36. 下载一个新东方背单词软件，里面从小学到大学的教程的单词都有，还有各种

36. Download a New Oriental vocabulary software, which contains words from primary school to university courses, as well as various...

37. 客人一小时见到的，比主人一年所见更多。（波兰谚语）

37. A guest sees more in an hour than a host in a year. (Polish proverb)

38. 早期的我，像大闹天宫的孙悟空；后期的我，已成为唐僧的徒弟了。早期飞扬跋扈，不知为谁而雄。后期似乎“雅驯”多了，却也太“驯”了吧。

38. In my early days, I was like the Monkey King, making a ruckus in the heavenly palace; in my later years, I have become a disciple of Tangseng. In my early years, I was rebellious and proud, not knowing for whom I was so heroic. In my later years, I seemed to have become more "polite," but wasn't it too "tame"?

39. 英国有一句格言说：“简洁乃妙想之灵魂。”（Brevity is the soul of wit）神思妙想，当如电光石火，一触即发，不可犹豫，不容修改，才肯定有力，一言九鼎。若是吞吞吐吐，翻来覆去，就显得只有寻思，未得结论了。凡是格言，必为整数，后面不能拖小数点。何况句子长了，就不好记，也就乏人引用，怎能流传久远？例如“一言难尽”，如果拖成“不是一句话就说得清楚的呀”，就散成一堆沙了。

39. There is a proverb in Britain that says, "Brevity is the soul of wit." Imaginative ideas should be as swift and resplendent as lightning, ready to strike at a moment's notice, without hesitation or room for revision, for only then are they truly powerful and as weighty as nine stones. If one stammers and backtracks, it only appears that one is contemplating without reaching a conclusion. All proverbs must be complete statements, not trailing with a decimal point. Moreover, if a sentence is too long, it is difficult to remember and less likely to be quoted, thus how can it endure over time? For example, "A single word cannot suffice," if stretched into "It is not something that can be clearly explained in a single sentence," it would dissolve into a heap of sand.

40. 回头亲，穷断筋。

40. Turn back and kiss, break your bones.

41. 莫看容颜，要看心眼。

41. Don't judge by appearance, but by one's eyes (heart).

42. 手提电脑，携带方便，学英语必备（本人花了1600元买了一个二手的，已经用了三年了．）

42. Laptop, convenient to carry, a necessity for learning English (I spent 1600 yuan on a second-hand one and have been using it for three years.)

43. 『 壹 』

43. [One]