成语：画龙点睛
发音：huà lóng diǎn jīng
解释：原形容梁代画家张僧繇作画的神妙。后多比喻写文章或讲话时，在关键处用几句话点明实质，使内容生动有力。
翻译：to add the crowning touch
Here we have another Chengyu just like 千里送鹅毛 which has to do with an animal and which is easy to understand from the first sight. Watch out for the structure, it is verb-noun-verb-noun, which we encounter often. 画龙 means painting a dragon. And 点睛 means adding eyes to it. So in this case 点 does not mean “point” but is a verb instead. Literally translated 画龙点睛 means “painting a dragon and adding the eyes”.
The Chengyu originates from a great painter named zhāng sēng yāo (张僧繇) whom many people were watching while he was painting dragons at a temple. The dragons were very beautiful, only were they missing eyes. So the surrounding people curiously asked: “Why don’t they have eyes?” He mysteriously answered, that if they have eyes, they will fly away! Since everyone just regarded him in disbelief, he lifted his hands again and added a pair of eyes. In this moment that dragon… whuushhh…. indeed became alive, and flew away!! (Magic….) and all the people were stupefied.
This is the origin of the idiom 画龙点睛. It is used to describe that by adding only a tiny little detail, the whole work becomes much better and lively. Just like the dragon who became alive. In German you would see “das Sahnehäubchen” or “das gewisse Etwas”. In English there is a similar saying: “do add the crowning touch”. Often this Chengyu is used to describe, of course painting, but also essays and literature work, speeches, decoration and more and more.
For example:
- 这盏灯对我的房间的装饰起了画龙点睛的作用。
This light adds the crowning touch to my room decoration.