万里长城

萬里長城

wànlǐ-chángchéng

idiom #40,816

Meanings

1 the Great Wall of China
2 an indispensable defender or bulwark of the state

Characters

li (Chinese mile)

wall; city wall

Examples

HSK 4

万里长城是中国最著名的古代工程。

Wànlǐchángchéng shì Zhōngguó zuì zhùmíng de gǔdài gōngchéng.

The Great Wall is China's most famous ancient engineering project.

HSK 6

人民军队是保卫祖国的万里长城。

Rénmín jūnduì shì bǎowèi zǔguó de wànlǐchángchéng.

The people's army is the Great Wall defending the motherland.

HSK 7-9

不到长城非好汉,这是一句古老的俗语。

Bú dào Chángchéng fēi hǎohàn, zhè shì yí jù gǔlǎo de súyǔ.

'He who has not reached the Great Wall is no true man' - this is an old saying.

Tips

history

Figurative use comes from 《南史·檀道济传》: when the Liu-Song general Tan Daoji was arrested on false charges, he hurled his headdress to the ground and cried 乃坏汝万里长城 - 'You are destroying your own Great Wall!' Thereafter 万里长城 became shorthand for an irreplaceable defender of the state.

culture

Each character's literal numerics - 万 (ten thousand) 里 (Chinese li, about half a km) - yield a length that's hyperbolic: the actual wall is far longer than 10,000 li, the number simply means 'countless'.

Stroke Order

万 wàn

里 lǐ

长 cháng

城 chéng