To the speakers of a language, certain animals seem to have their own characteristics. For example, in Chinese and Japanese, it is said that foxes have magical powers, while cranes and tortoises are supposed to bring long life. However, not every language characterizes animals in the same way.

Foxes are not magical but only sly for English speakers. For them, cranes have no special meaning, but similar birds, storks, are said to bring newborn babies to a family. In addition, tortoises are considered to be slow but sure.

Mice are supposed to be shy. They are believed to have no courage. Therefore, you can say to a coward, “Are you a man or a mouse?” The expression “as quiet as a mouse” is also common. You can say, for example, “Everybody was as quiet as a mouse until the end of the examination. Then they sounded like a herd of elephants.”

Elephants have a number of images. A herd of elephants are often considered to be very noisy, but people also say, “Elephants never forget.” English speakers imagine that elephants have a long memory.

A “white elephant” refers to something that is useless and a waste of money. If you own a car that can’t run, the car is a white elephant.

The first circus elephant in the United States of America was called “Jumbo.” The name was taken from the word for “elephant” in an African language. Jumbo the elephant became very popular and famous. Soon, the name came to be given to any elephant, and then it came to be used for anything big. Therefore, nowadays we have jumbo jets, jumbo hamburgers, and so on.

The subjects of many proverbs are animals. Here are some: “When the cat is away, the mice will play.” “Let sleeping dogs lie.” “You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Which proverbs have animals as their subjects in your own language?

You have already seen the expression “as quiet as a mouse.” There are a lot of similar expression with “as... as....” They are called similes. “As proud as a peacock” is a simile with a bird as its subject. This shows that in English the image of the peacock can mean not only beauty but also pride.

A chicken has an image of fearfulness or cowardice. If you call somebody a chicken, it means he is a coward, not brave enough to do something. Some fish have special images in English. One of them is a shark. We may call people sharks if they deal with others unfairly, such as by tricking them out of their money.

Two kinds of insects have the image of being very busy: bees and ants. Therefore, you can describe a person who has a lot of work to do by saying, “She’s as busy as a bee.”

Every language has words and expressions which describe the characteristics of some animals. Sometimes these animals have the same images in a foreign language as they do in Chinese; sometimes they don’t.