A Study On Examples Of Chinese Idioms On The Basis Of Chinese Dictionaries For Foreign Learners

Examples in a dictionary can not only provide the specific context information of the entry, as amain means, also help paraphrase and show its semantic and grammatical function. Therefore, anentry’s examples and its paraphrases given in a dictionary are directly related to the overall levelof a dictionary. A Traditional Introversion-oriented Idiom Dictionary is designed for Chinesenative speakers, of which most examples are not suitable for Chinese learners as a secondlanguage, because its obscure examples are all cited from the classics or ancient works. In thatway, in compiling Chinese Dictionaries for Foreign Learners, examples and paraphrases of anyidiom should have their uniqueness.In this paper overall research has been made among A Chinese Dictionary for Foreign Learners,A Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Idioms and Learner’s Dictionary of Chinese Idioms bythe Commercial Press. Of three dictionaries the idioms examples are analyzed on the contextlevel as well as semantic and grammatical lever. On the basis of analysis and comparison above,advantages and disadvantages of the idioms examples in each dictionary are evaluated, combinedwith the statistic result of the questionnaire on the examples of Chinese idioms selected from thethree dictionaries above carried on some overseas students. Finally the paper puts forward thefour compiling principles, namely,“Matching Principle”,“Popular Principle”,“Level Principle”and “Communicative Principle”, with a view to benefiting the compiling work for idioms examplesof Chinese Dictionaries for Foreign Learners as well as some valuable reference to relevant studyon dictionaries in the future.