About japanese special expressions


暖簾に腕押し  
noren ni udeoshi  
not worth doing  
waste of effort

才色兼備  
saishokukenbi  
being gifted with both intelligence and beauty

白昼堂々  
hakuchūdōdō  
openly (unashamedly) in broad daylight

虎視眈々  
koshitantan  
vigilantly with an opportunity to prey upon with an eagle eye

Is there a site or list or something where one can find expressions like
these?

Also roughly how many are of these kind of expressions?




Except the first, those words are called 四字熟語{よじじゅくご}. Some of those originate
from Chinese idioms. Others are simple compositions of two usually 2-character
words. Since their origin is mostly Chinese, they are usually read as Onyomi
(that's why the first word doesn't fall in this category).

There exist several online dictionaries for these 四字熟語, e.g. on
<http://yoji.jitenon.jp/cat/yomi11.html> I was able to find 才色兼備. The sheer
amount suggests however to not learn them all like a simple vocabulary list.
I'd suggest to learn them after witnessing native speakers using them.




Except the first, those words are called 四字熟語{よじじゅくご}. Some of those originate
from Chinese idioms. Others are simple compositions of two usually 2-character
words. Since their origin is mostly Chinese, they are usually read as Onyomi
(that's why the first word doesn't fall in this category).

There exist several online dictionaries for these 四字熟語, e.g. on
<http://yoji.jitenon.jp/cat/yomi11.html> I was able to find 才色兼備. The sheer
amount suggests however to not learn them all like a simple vocabulary list.
I'd suggest to learn them after witnessing native speakers using them.

