Chéngyǔ are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four characters. Chengyu were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in written Chinese and Spoken Chinese today.

 

Chéngyǔ are mostly derived from ancient literature, and are often intimately linked with the myth, story or historical fact from which they were derived. As such, chengyu do not follow the usual grammatical structure.

 

Chéngyǔ in isolation are often unintelligible to modern Chinese, and when students learn chengyu as part of the classical curriculum, they also need to study the context from which the chengyu was born.

 

井底之蛙 Jǐng Dǐ Zhī Wā

 

一只住在井里的青蛙，从来没有去过外面。有一天，它正在睡觉，突然听到外面有人在争论天有多大。它抬头看了看，心想：“外面的人真傻，天不就是井口那么大吗？还要争论。”

 

后来，这个成语就用来讽刺那些眼光狭小，见识短浅而又自以为是的人。

 

Translation:

A Frog in a Well

 

A frog in a well never went out. One day when he was sleeping, he heard some persons arguing how big the sky is. He raised his head and looked at the sky, then he thought:" They are too foolish. Isn't the sky as big as the opening of the well?"

It refers to the person with a very limited outlook.