Learn Chinese Idiom-To Eat the Date Whole

Chinese idioms are of equal importance to English idioms in the process of learning mandarin. The wording of the Chinese idioms is simple and cultural. Each Chinese idiom has cultural story behind itself, so to learn Chinese language by understanding the story will help us better understand the idiom. Learning Chinese idioms is also an important part of mandarin learning at Chinese school.

In this article, we will learn the idiom "囫囵吞枣 (húlún tūnzǎo)". This idiom may seem a little complicated to those who is trying to learn Chinese characters, but being able to say it and understand the meaning of the idiom is more important at first. "囫囵 (húlún)" means "the whole;" "吞 (tūn)" means to "swallow;" "枣 (zǎo)" is "date.”So, this idiom literally means "to eat the date whole."

Let’s understand the story behind the idiom and know what it really means besides the literal meaning:

A long time ago, a person who considered himself clever went to a friend's party. Everyone was chatting together while eating fruits. A guest among the group said, "It is hard to have the best of both worlds. Let's take eating fruits as an example. Pears are good for our teeth, but they harm our stomachs if we eat too many of them. Likewise, dates are good for our stomachs, but bad for our teeth." The others agreed with the guest. The man who considered himself clever continued the conversation by saying, "This problem is easy to solve. We can discard the pulps when eating pears in order to avoid hurting our stomachs, and we can also eat the date whole in order to protect our teeth."

In Chinese study, this idiom refers to a person who accepts information without digesting and analyzing it or who does things carelessly without paying attention to the details.

There are many ways to learn Chinese idioms. You can learn Chinese idioms online or attend a Chinese school, both of which are effective and necessary. Personally, I would recommend iChineseLearning who focuses on the needs of customers and offers interesting Chinese lessons and all kinds of Chinese learning materials for language learners. Give it a try!