Free Chinese learning, tailored for you! This series highlights idioms and proverbs, useful in many contexts. Let’s explain 「談虎色變」 and how it’s used.
This feature highlights the idiom 「談虎色變」, with its meaning and examples shown below.
Color: complexion. Originally it meant that only those who have been bitten by a tiger truly know how powerful the tiger is. The latter is used to describe becoming nervous when one mentions something one is afraid of.
The Mandarin pronunciation of this idiom is :
tán hǔ sè biàn
while its Cantonese pinyin is :
taam4 fu2 sik1 bin3
There’s no shortage of Chinese idioms, each offering unique meanings and ways to use them. This guide is here to assist you as you improve your understanding of the language.
