Tuesday, February 24, 2009

四字熟語(yoji jukugo): Four-character idiomatic phrase

Yoji jukugo(四字熟語) is the idiomatic phrase made of four kanji characters. There exists so many yoji jukugo. Today I would like to introduce some of them using the numbers.

First let's review how to count one to ten in Japanese. 1 is ichi (一), 2 is ni (二), 3 is san (三), 4 is shi or yon (四), 5 is go (五), 6 is roku (六), 7 is shichi or nana (七), 8 is hachi (八), 9 is ku or kyu (九), 10 is ju (十).

Isseki nicho (一石二鳥)literally means one stone two birds, that is to kill two birds with one stone.
Sankan shion (三寒四温) literally means three cold four warm, that is a cycle of three cold days and four warm days.
Gozo roppu (五臓六腑) literally means five internal organs six bowels, that is heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney, small intestine, large intestine, gall bladder, urinary bladder, stomach and san jiao, therefore it means whole body or what is in mind.
Shichiten hakki (七転八起) literally means seven falls eight rises, that is undaunted perseverance to rise after a fall or repeated failures.
Jicchu hakku (十中八九) literally means ten among eight nine, that is in all probability of eight or nine cases out of ten.

Are there any yoji jyukugo you liked here?

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