【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 ity is a phantom, and all phantoms are real.” es from Chinese Buddhism. Classical literary worksAt last, classical literary work, which is one of the major resources that create many idioms. Shakespeare’s dramas bee the richest resources of English idioms after the Bible, which are used widely. Here are some examples: “Achilles’ heel (阿咯硫斯的腳踵)” es from Greek civilization。 “Talk of the devil and he es”, whose Chinese meaning is “說曹操，曹操就到”, es from “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.In a word, idioms are not only related to a nation’s religions and culture, but closely related to history, cultural heritages, life experience, etc. These are the major factors which decide idioms’ national features. Thus, idioms can be viewed as a mirror that reflects a nation or cultural characteristics. Features of English IdiomsAs a kind of special speech form, English idioms are different in meaning, usage as well as grammatical structure. They have many fundamental features. Various lengthsFor example: “influenza” —illness from wealth and rank。 “bluebeard:— criminal for serial of wifekiller。 “boycott”— to refuse to buy or take part in as a way of expressing strong disapproval。 “catch22”—a difficult situation in which one can neither advance nor retreat.On the other hand, some idioms are much longer, consisting of entire sentences sometimes. For example: “more than one way to skin a cat”— there are many methods to solve the problem。 “ pot calling the kettle black” —make fun of people who have the shorting as oneself. Different structuresIn general, there are three kinds of structures of English idioms. The first kind has an irregular and illogical structure. For example: the idiom “Diamond cut diamond”, the verb “cut” is an irregular and illogical form in terms of modern English grammar. And so is the idiom “The devil take the hindmost.”Another kind has a regular structure, while the meaning is unknown. Take the idiom “to have a bee in one’s bonnet” as an example, which owns a regular structure, the meaning is not clear, however. Its meaning is “to have a strange fixed idea about something.” It can not explain the idiom from the original meaning of the single words. Most English idioms belong to this type.The third kind is a unique group, whose structure and meaning are irregular, for example, “through thick and thin”. Not only the structure is hard for people to understand , but the meaning of the idiom is impossible to be guessed. Its meaning is “ in spite of all the difficulties”. Meanings beyond literalThe idiom “To rain cats and dogs” can’t be determined from its ponent parts. To get mastery of idioms, we can only study hard and practice more. The idiom’s meaning is “to rain very hard”. Words of high frequencyEnglish idioms are vivid, usage and profound. For example, “once in a blue moon” means “once in a very long time, very rarely, almost never” 。 “to cry for the moon” drives at “to desire strongly something that cannot be gained”。 “to fly high” means “to be ambitious”。 “to put the cart before the horse” drives at “to do things in the wrong order”。 “to turn up one’s nose at” drives at “to show disdain for”. Features of Chinese idiomsChinese idioms are related to many aspects, in the paper, the author analyzed their features as follows: Regular structureChinese idioms are more regular than English idioms in terms of structure .Chinese idioms’ set phrases often consist of a fixed number of Chinese characters, which makes their pronunciations rhymed. Chinese idioms are different from English idioms, which can be easily interpreted literally in most of the cases. For example, the Chinese idioms “An Jian Nan Fang(暗箭難防)” can be understood as “ the arrow shot from a concealed place that is hard to escape from” . However, it should be mentioned that not all the Chinese idioms’ essence can be get only from its surface meaning. Chinese culture is rich and nutrient, which is shown deeply and profoundly by Chinese idioms. One should dig deeper for the connotation after catching the literal meaning. Close relationship with the nation’s historyIt can be seen that nation’s history is closely related to Chinese idioms. Take the idiom“Wo Xin Chang Dan(臥薪嘗膽)” as an example, whose meaning is “to sleep on brushwood and taster gall to undergo selfimposed hardship and strengthen one’s resolution to wipe out a national humiliation”. There has a reference about historical event in ancient China. Apart from semantics, there are still historical connections, such as wording, grammar or sound. For example, “He Zui Zhi You(何罪之有)”.Chapter Three Classification of English and Chinese Idioms Idioms on geographical conditionsCulture is influenced a lot by the environment. Human beings and the nature are closely related to each other. First, human depends on the nature, and is bound by the nature. And then, human beings always try their best to have a great mand of the nature and reshape it, like land, climate, river, which affect people’s daily life closely. In Chinese and English idioms, they can be showed frequently. The Chinese geography idiomsAs for Chinese people, lands are very significant. So is the agriculture in people’s daily life. Many idioms use the geographical words to explain something. Here are some examples: “Yi Bai Tu Di(一敗涂地）” drives at “pletely failed, be routed” 。 “Mian Ru Tu Se(面如土色)” drives at “l(fā)ook ashen。 look pale”。 “ shan wu leng, tian di he(山無棱，天地合) means “ wait firmly until something is impossible”. These examples show us that lands are very significant to Chinese people. So we can see many idioms about the land in the Chinese idioms. It can be concluded that the Chinese culture can be called the agriculture civilization. The English geography idiomsPeople’s life is closely connectedly to the ocean in European countries. For example, English is an island country. There are few fields in England, which are