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Chengyu quiz
Ten Chinese idioms. Hear each one and pick what it means. At the end you see the ones to learn.
Idiom 1 of 10
What does it mean?
What is a chengyu?
A chengyu (成语) is a set phrase, almost always four characters, that packs a story or an image into a few words: 画蛇添足, “drawing legs on a snake”, means spoiling something by adding what it doesn’t need. Native speakers use them in speech and everywhere in writing, so knowing the common ones makes news, novels and comments much easier to read.
Which idioms are in the quiz?
The 398 four-character idioms in the official HSK word list (the exam’s 2025 syllabus) for levels 7 to 9, the ones a learner past HSK 6 is expected to know. Each round asks ten at random. Their meanings come from our dictionary; the three wrong answers are meanings of other idioms in the list.
Keys
1 to 4 pick a meaning, Space plays the idiom again and Enter goes to the next one.
The voices are generated speech (ElevenLabs), the same two the app's word cards use. The pinyin gives each character its own tone, as a dictionary writes it; the voice says the idiom as it is spoken, with 一, 不 and third tones changed. A meaning is the idiom's main sense; many have more.