【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 rong as a horse”, “as stubborn as a mule” and “The horse that draws best is most whipped.” Besides, the British advocate horsemanship. They like raising horses and holding horseraces. Thus there are a great number of idioms concerning horse, such as: “dark horse”, “eat like a horse”, “bet on the wrong horse”, “change horse in midstream”, “hold one’s horse”, etc.In western culture, the cunning fox specially likes eating the goose surreptitiously. If leaving the fox to look after the geese alone, wouldn’t it mean looking for trouble? We have no such knowledge in Chinese. Thereby, the English idiom “set a fox to keep one’s geese”（讓狐貍看鵝）would be quite baffling to the Chinese. But there is an identical idiom in Chinese ——“引狼入室”which means the same thing as “set a fox to keep one’s geese”. Both of the two idioms are translated correspondingly and vividly.It is worth mentioning that, in Chinese’s eyes, tiger is the king of wild animals. It has rich cultural symbolized meaning, including the mendatory connotation, such as valor, grandeur and might, as well as the derogatory connotation of cruelty, savageness and ferociousness. While in English culture, lion is the king of all animals, consequently, there are obviously much more English idioms concerning lion than the Chinese idioms concerning tiger, so that “we often translate lion into ‘虎’ in English translation, such as ‘a(chǎn) lion in the way’(攔路虎), ‘place oneself in the lion’s mouth’(深入虎穴)”,etc.[12] Different cognitions of colors There are three kinds of basic colors: red, yellow and blue. Colors are cognized mainly through the seven kinds of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple in the spectrum. Due to the different countries’ historical backgrounds, geographical locations, customs and traditions, people have diverse cognitions of colors, so the idioms rising under the conditions reflect such regional differences.Taking “red” and “white” for example, in western countries, red is regarded as brutality and unluckiness. Red means bleeding. So there appears some having derogatory and taboo color words, such as “red skin（對印第安人的鄙夷稱呼），red tape（繁文縟節(jié)，官僚習(xí)氣）,in the red（虧損）,out of red（扭虧為盈）, red alert（空襲、緊急警報）, red cock（縱火引起的火災(zāi)）, red cent（毫無價值的事物）etc.” [13] While in China, red means luck and joy. There are many Chinese idioms obviously having plimentary sense, such as開門紅 (get off to have a good start), 紅顏薄命 (a beautiful girl has an unfortunate life), 紅運(yùn)當(dāng)頭(have a good luck), 紅光滿面 (in the pink), 紅男綠女(gaily dressed young men and women), 紅得發(fā)紫(extremely popular), 紅極一時（enjoy popularity for a time）, 紅裝素裹（clad in white, adorned in red）,etc.People in western countries look upon white as the symbol of purity, as well as some implications of racial discrimination. The westerners are white people who entrust extremely noble symbol to white. In English there are：white hat（好人），white lies （善意的謊言）， whiteheaded boy（寵兒），the white hope（帶來榮譽(yù)的人），white slavery（逼良為娼——西方人認(rèn)為白種人不能做奴隸），etc. However it is different in China. In Chinese’s eyes, white stands for funeral and revolt, which has derogatory color. For example, there are白日做夢(indulge in wishful thinking), 白費(fèi)口舌(waste one’s breath),一窮二白(poor and blank),白忙乎(in vain) ,白字連篇(reams of wrong characters), 白云蒼狗(white clouds change into grey dogsthe changes in human affairs often take freakish forms)etc. Different cognitions of numeralsNumeral worship and taboo exist both in eastern and western courtiers, however, the people in the two countries have totally different cognitions of numerals.In the west, “13” is regarded as an unlucky number, owing to the story in the Bible that Jesus Christ was betrayed by his 13th disciple Judas. “666” symbolizes demon in the Bible. “7” stands for good luck, great prosperity and victory. But there is no particular connotation of “9” at all in English. The examples are: in the seventh heaven（極其快樂）, the Seventh Day（星期六——猶太人安息日）, etc. In China, “13”, “666”, “7” have no special meanings, therefore, there is no taboo usage of them. However, “six”(六)、 “nine”(九) have peculiar cultural connotations to the Chinese people. “nine”(九). means a long period of peace and order or lasting political stability in Chinese traditional culture. The emperors of the past dynasties worshipped “nine”(九), hoping his country could be in great peace and order. There are Chinese idioms concerning “nine”(九), such as “九九歸一” ,“九死一生”etc. “six”(六) means that something goes on smoothly in Chinese，there are“六六大順”“六畜興旺”etc. Meanwhile, Chinese people place the allegorical meaning on the even number, such as “雙喜臨門”、“四季發(fā)財”、“八面玲瓏”etc. “It is calculated that there are far more Chinese idiom using numerals than the English idioms, which is a difficult problem to the translation.”[14] Different Religions and Beliefs Religion plays an important role in the development of the language. Different religions produce different idioms. Buddhism has been transmitted to China for more than one thousand years, which occupies the leading position in Chinese traditional religions.People believe there is a “Buddha” who can dominate the world and decide everyone’s destine. Many Chinese idioms e form Buddhism, such as “佛口蛇心”、“佛頭著糞”、“借花獻(xiàn)佛”、“五體投地”、“一塵不染”、“現(xiàn)身說法”、“回頭是岸”、“在劫難逃”、“大慈大悲”etc. There are also proverbs ing from Buddhism. For example,“不看僧面看佛面”、 “閑時不燒香，臨時抱佛腳”、“跑得了和尚跑不了廟”、“泥菩薩過河，自身難?！?、“放下屠刀，立地成佛”、“一個和尚挑水吃，兩個和尚抬水吃，三個和尚沒水吃”etc. In western countries especially in Britain and America， people believe in Christianity. The Bible has been regarded the classical Christian scripture, which establishes a foundation of western countries’ culture, art and ideology, Idioms concerning the Bible can be found everywhere. For example, “doubting Thomas”（懷疑的托馬斯）is an idiom from the Bible now stands for “不肯輕易相信別人的人(people who will not believe in others easily)”. And The idiom “cast pearls before swine”（把珍珠丟在豬的面前） is also from the Bible: New Testament, and now it stands for“not to give the precious things to people