Cultural Insight II - Mandarin House Review

一箭双雕

                             yíjiànshuāngdiāo

Meaning:

Different cultures sometimes share same idea; for example the English language has the phrase, 'kill two birds with one stone' and Chinese has something very similar: 一箭双雕 yíjiànshuāngdiāo which literally means ' to kill two vultures with one arrow'.

The story behind this 成语 comes from (The History of Northern Dynasties) which was completed approximately 650AD and covered the historical period of 386-618AD.
It is said that once upon time a man named Zhang-Sunsheng saw two vultures fighting each other in the sky. Zhang-Sunsheng took his bow and shot just one arrow killing both vultures. People thought that this was a miracle and so the story was widely spread. Since then, people use this phrase to describe someone who has achieved two goals through just one action.

Example:

他来中国生活，找到了好工作，也找到了爱情，真是一箭双雕！

Tā lái zhōngguó shēnghuó，zhǎodào le hǎo gōngzuò，yě zhǎodào le àiqíng，zhēn shì yíjiànshuāngdiāo！

He found a good job as well as his true love by coming to China, that’s really yíjiànshuāngdiāo!