Dear Bananas,

We know how it feels like when you're sitting with your Mandarin-speaking friends and can barely understand what they are talking about. 

You might think, I struggled to learn a few Mandarin words but what do they mean by horse tiger or 250? 

Here are some Mandarin expressions that only Mandarin-speakers would understand, but now, with our help, so can you. 

1. 画蛇添足 / huà shé tiān zú

Direct English Translation: Paint a snake with feet

Explanation: Bananas, stop blinking your eyes in confusion. If someone says this to you, they aren’t saying that they have a foot fetish or a reptile obsession. 

This is an idiom that means you don’t have to do unnecessary stuff or like add unnecessary stuff into a situation. 

Its like you painting a snake and giving it feet. Why would you do that? Snakes don’t have feet. It is unnecessary! 

2. 沉鱼落雁 / chén yú, luò yàn

Direct English Translation: Sink fish, drop goose

Explanation: If someone tells you that you are sink fish, drop goose, don’t get angry and try and pick a fight with them for calling you a fishy goose. This is actually a compliment! 

Sink fish, drop goose actually means drop dead gorgeous. It actually means that you are beautiful/handsome enough to sink a fish and make geese fall from the sky. 

3. 二百五 / èr bǎi wǔ

Direct English Translation: 250

Explanation: A long time ago, a king’s best friend was assassinated, and he was determined to find the killer. His strategy was to publicly announce that he was looking for a hitman to kill his already dead best friend. 

Soon, four men showed up at his gates demanding 250 coins each because in Ancient China, the square hole in copper coins was used to string them together and normally 1000 coins were stringed together. So, if you divide among them, each of them would receive 250 coins.

Of course, by doing so, the men literally outed themselves as the ones who had killed the king’s best friend and so they were killed. 

Hence 250 means doing something stupid. 

4. 马虎 / mǎhū

Direct English Translation: Horse tiger

Explanation: One day he was painting a tiger’s head when a customer came by and asked him to paint a horse. The painter then carelessly paints the body of the horse attached to his half-completed tiger head. When the customer asked him, what is that creature he painted he said it is a horse tiger (mǎhū).

That day when the customer went home with the painting, his first son asked him what animal is that in the painting, the customer said it was a tiger. Later, the son went hunting and killed someone’s horse thinking it was a tiger, so the customer had to pay the owner. 

Then the customer’s second son asked him about the animal, so he says it is a horse. Later, the second son was killed by a tiger because he thought it was a horse and tried to ride it. 

The moral of the story is don’t do sloppy or careless work because it might have a negative impact on others. 

5. 拍马屁 / pāi mǎ pì

Direct English Translation: Slap on horse’s ass

Explanation: If you tell someone they’re amazing and they say this to you, they are actually saying that you’re like kissing their butt to gain some benefit or good impression. 

In English we normally say that someone is a kiss ass, or a suck-up or someone is brown-nosing. 

6. 炒鱿鱼/ chǎoyóuyú

Direct English Translation: Squid Fried

Explanation: If you’re at work and your boss suddenly come to you table and tells you nǐ bèi chǎoyóuyúle. Don’t think yay he’s belanja-ing me fried quid today, he’s actually firing you. 

This expression has another origin story. A long time ago, labourers had to leave their hometowns and go to the city to work. 

They usually packed a simple bamboo mat to sleep on. So, when they get fired, they would roll their bamboo mats up and go home. 

The bamboo mats when rolled up look like fried squid, hence why getting fired is related to fried squid. 

7. 吃醋 / chī cù

Direct English Translation: Eat Vinegar

Explanation: So, you’re with your girlfriend when suddenly, a gorgeous woman passes by and you can’t help but look. Then your girlfriend will chī cù. 

Still don’t know what it means? It means jealous la! So don’t be 250! 

8. 种草莓 / zhǒng cǎoméi

Direct English Translation: Plant Strawberries

Explanation: So, if you and your boyfriend are starting to do the deed and he asks you if he can plant strawberries, it doesn’t mean that he wants to literally go plant strawberries in your backyard. 

It means he wants to give you hickeys. I think it’s called that because hickeys are reddish and so are strawberries. 

9. 有钱就是任性/ yǒu qián jiù shì rèn xìng

Direct English Translation: Got cash, can do what I want.

Explanation: This idiom actually came from a real event that transpired in 2012, when a rich man who was scammed by a pharmaceutical company and decided to go along with the charade after discovering it was a scam just to see how much money they could take from him.

He was so rich that it didn’t matter. He has the money, so he could do whatever he wanted. 

10. 缘木求鱼 / yuánmùqiúyú

Direct English Translation: Climbing a tree to catch fish

Explanation: This actually just means lost cause. If you want to catch a fish, you’d normally go to the sea or the river, but would you climb a tree? 

It’s like you are climbing a tree and looking for the fish but you will never find it. You can climb 1000 trees but still won’t find fish on them. Get it? If not, then trying to explain this to you is like climbing a tree to catch fish.