Getting Two Things with One Action

Characters:

Pronunciation: yi(4) ju(3) liang(3) de(2)

Explanation: Similar with 'Hitting Two Birds With One Stone", this is a metaphor that means it's often easier to get things done through strategy and planning.

Tone: neutral

The Story: One day, a man called Ka Zhuangze went hunting with his friend. They found 2 tigers were eating one cow, and Ka Zhuangze wanted to kill the tigers. His friend stopped him and said, "The two tigers are eating the same cow, and they'll soon be fighting for the last shreds of meat. The weaker one will be killed by the stronger one, and the stronger one will suffer many wounds in the fight, and then it is easy for you to kill it and meanwhile you get the reputation of killing two tigers together, isn't it a good deal?"

Ka Zhuangzi took his friend's suggestion to heart, and at last he did get the two tigers without much work!

Usage Example (Pinyin): yi(4) ju(3) liang(3) de(2) zheng (4) shi(4) wo(3) xiang(3) yao(4) de.

Usage Example (English translation): Getting two things with one action, that's what I want.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.