Leisurely and carefree – no-nonsense Chinese idioms
Thankfully we have a more positive idiom after last week’s ‘to suffer a crushing defeat‘ example.
Image from the movie Free Willy
Note: The word in the image above next to this week’s idiom is 終於（终于 zhōng yú ）which means “eventually” or “at last”.
Usage
Traditional
我只想要一個自由自在的生活Simplified
我只想要一个自由自在的生活Pinyin
wǒ zhǐ xiǎngyào yīge zìyóuzìzài de shēnghuóEnglish
All I want is a leisurely and carefree life
This idiom can be broken down easily into two words that are also in very common use – 自由（zìyóu） which is “freedom” and 自在（zìzài） which is to be “comfortable” and “unrestrained”.
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Chris
A Scottish computer graduate turned Mandarin addict, Chris (currently a level 67 Frost Mage) has been learning Chinese for the last 3 years while living a free spirit existence in Taiwan. When he’s not pondering over radicals and stroke order, he’s making character frequency lists for fun or illustrating his web comic Horse Dragon Fish.
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