Chinese is a language packed with centuries of cultural wisdom and storytelling tradition. It’s only natural that there exists a slew of funny Chinese proverbs designed to give you a chuckle.

These proverbs are a terrific way to catch a break from your language studies and they give both literal and figurative meaning to words by effectively organizing the structure of the sentence or phrase.

Here are 9 funny Chinese proverbs to make your Chinese language learning experience a heck of a lot more entertaining!

落汤鸡

Luòtāngjī
A Chicken falls in soup
The characters read ‘fall’, ‘hot water’, ‘bird’. When translated accurately it means “A Chicken falls in soup.” It is ironic, because no sensible chicken would willingly boil itself in hot water. I guess when applied to life it can also mean “A person who made a mistake”.

天花乱坠 

Tānhuāluànzhuì
A mouth like running water
While this Chinese proverb is beautiful when it comes to the character composition, the meaning is still a bit of stretch when translated. The characters read ‘heaven’, ‘flowers’, disorder/chaos/riot’, ‘fall’. This unique combination of characters means to talk as if flowers were raining down from heaven in a chaotic fashion. Simply speaking it can be translated to an English idiom. “A mouth like running water.” or, ‘a chatterbox’.

拼命开车的人一定会到达那里

Pīnmìng kāichē de rén yídìng huì dàodá nàli
A Man who drives like hell to get there
This one is for all you speed demons out there who drive like it is your last day on earth. Whenever I ride in my brother’s car, I accept my faith before I step in car because I know he is going to be doing 80mph in a 40mph zone while texting on his phone. I always tell him “You’re driving towards your end.” This proverb, while amusing is a clever way of cautioning reckless drivers.

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用一个筷子吃饭的人是饿的

Yòng yígè kuàizi chīfàn de rén shì è de
A man with one chopstick goes hungry
Have you ever tried eating with one chopstick? Not only is it impossible, but it’s impossible (see what I did there?) I would call this a funny Chinese proverb because it is truly frightening to think about sitting in front of a big bowl of gyoza and steamed rice with one chopstick. On a more figurative level this proverb is saying “Find the balance in your life.”

一个男人在电栅栏上小便将会得到令人震惊的消息

Yí gè nán rén zài diàn zhà lán shàng xiǎo biàn jiāng huì  dé dào lìng rén zhèn jīng  de xiāo xi 
A man who pees on a fence, receives shocking news
Who in their right mind pees on a fence, an electrical one in fact? If I had to convey a figurative meaning for this “shocking idiom” it would be “Don’t try to solve a problem, while you’re creating your own.”

一个在床上吃饼干的男人醒来感觉很糟糕

Yí gè zài chuáng shàng chī bǐng gān de nán rén xǐng lái gǎn jué hěn  zāo gāo .
A man who eats crackers in his bed, wakes up feeling crummy
Admit it, this is comedic gold…crummy? OK, maybe that was a bit sarcastic. Anyways, the only thing I can think of when I hear this proverb is to not be greedy and eat too much food, especially before bedtime.

NSFW Funny Chinese Proverbs for Private Laughs

These are Chinese proverbs that are specifically made for short outbursts of laughter. These are not so commonly used in casual conversation; however, you might see them somewhere in a slang book due to the slightly “NSFW” nature of them.

一个愚蠢的男人给了他的妻子一架三角钢琴。智者给妻子一个正直的器官

Yí gè yú chǔn de nán rén gěi le tā de qī  zǐ yí  jià sān  jiǎo gāng  qín zhì zhě  gěi qī zǐ yí  gè zhèng zhí de  qì guān .
A foolish man gives his wife a grand piano. A wise man gives his wife an upright organ
HINT: It is not the organ in the church.
I am just here to share the joke, don’t go crazy in public talking about “upright organs”.

手整体插在口袋里的人过分自信

Shǒu zhěng tǐ chā zài kǒu dài lǐ de rén guò fèn zì xìn .
Man with a hand in pocket feels cocky all day
Okay, okay settle down kiddies. This one speaks for itself and can go in several ways depending on your interpretation.  Nonetheless, it’s extremely clever and Confucius ought to be proud of this creation. I’m just re-reading this and noticing how funny this Chinese proverb is. The literal and figurative meanings blend so perfectly, its comical!

一天到晚和妻子吵架的男人晚上什么都得不到

Yì tiān dào wǎn hè qī zǐ chǎo jià de nán rén wǎn shang shén me dōu dé bú dào
A man who fights with his wife all day doesn’t get any piece at night
If you’re wondering if I typed that right, I did. At first it took me a while to get it, then I remembered that English is a language with a lot of homonyms.  The word “piece” in this scenario means something other than what you think it means… “piece of what?”

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Kiandro has a B.A in Asian Studies and enjoys studying foreign languages. He’s proficient in Japanese and currently has Chinese, Spanish, Swahili, and Esperanto on his plate.