more on tigers:
羊質虎皮 - A sheep in Tiger’s clothing.
Exactly the revese of A wolf in sheep’s clothing, same meaning as 狐假虎威.
It’s weird that they came up with so many ways to say someone pretending to have the ability hiding behind someone, and never came up with something similar to a wolf in sheep’s clothing…
笑裡藏刀 is kind of on mark.
Just came across this. Made me smile:
他喜得屁滾尿流 "he was so happy that… (anyone has a good translation for it? ) 
shat his pants? 
not “his ass rolled and his pee flowed”?
…he couldn’t contain himself?
:ohreally: I may never be able to use that idiom again. (The English one.)
Here is a chengyu I just encountered and did not know:
趨之若鶩 [qū zhī ruò wù] {flocking to sth}
Context:
臺灣吃冰的歷史可溯至日治時期，這些冰種經過時代的演進，有的逐漸被淘汰，少在市面上看見；有的則華麗變身，在視覺、口感上都讓人驚豔，甚至觀光客也趨之若鶩，躍上國際舞臺。
This is one of those chengyu you can guess easily. "Tourists are drawn to the icy treat like a type of bird [I needed to look up].
Are you talking to me?
I think that’s a mallard (鶩), some kind of duck.
Yeah, I think I will remember this chengyu the next time around 
改頭換面 if you take this one literally, it’s like ancient makeover or plastic surgery. Like Face Off should have been called 改頭換面. The original poem actually refers to reincarnation, though I don’t think that’s the common usage.
The movie was named 變臉 in Chinese, maybe because it has a double meaning, like, in addition to changing face, also changing one’s attitude to someone else? Also they were like 變來變去ing in that film. Don’t think 改頭換面 is reversible, or is it?
變臉 means specifically to get angry or become hostile.
That was what I meant, I think Travolta and Cage became quite agitated in that movie. [Btw, wow, 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought it was a lousy film that was hilariously stupid.]
Maybe not. The English title is certainly chosen very well.
I think most people use it the same way as 洗新革面. The original poem is saying that in reincarnation if nothing is done towards enlightenment, then you could be a totally different person or being and still repeat the same exact things and the same exact relationships life after life.
I thought it was campy and fun, but in keeping with the thread’s theme, the plot structure was a little 龍頭蛇尾.
Question for the group related to 成語。
Has there been a comprehensive list of 成語 by frequency of usage in Taiwanese media?
I could only find one for China (4000+) and used this to create digital flashcards to brush up on them. Not because I want to use them all the time but because I don’t want to have to look them up if I come across them while reading.
I’ve used 成語接龍 apps in the past, and I don’t have time read stories, so just looking for the most efficient way.
五彩斑斕 [wǔ cǎi bān lán] - colorful, partycolored
許多家庭會準備五彩斑斕的彩蛋和兔子相關的擺飾
Just a chengyu I just came across.
Similar to 五彩繽紛, which is more common.
手忙腳亂 [shǒu máng jiǎo luàn] - Hands busy, feet in disarray.
This is a very easy one, but I like it because it’s very visual.
I was trying to find that list, but I can’t. However, papers like the one in the link below keep referencing high or low QIE frequencies, which probably means there is such a list. They didn’t provide a reference to that frequency list though.
This paper, and another one by the same author are pretty interesting. It’s talking about whether the frequency of how a chengyu is constructed effects comprehension. Or if a chengyu with clear semantic meaning is easier to understand than though without even if it is used more frequently.
The conclusion seems to be that a structure with a higher frequency ends up harder for native speakers to process because there are many other chengyu with a similar structure, so they need to pay more attention to figure out which one is being used. That’s probably only relevant to reading though.
