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uage into another are always complicated, if the two languages involved are so unlike in backgrounds and cultures with each other. This paper expounds the close relationship between idioms and culture translation, and the issue of idiom translation is explored from a cultural perspective. 2. Definitions and forms of idiom 2.1 The definitions of idiom The word “idiom” possesses several meanings. It may be defined as “the language of a people or a country”, as in “the Chinese idiom”; or “a dialect” as in “Cantonese idiom”. It may also be defined, according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, as “phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit”[1] p734. The second definition most suits the purpose of this paper. The Chinese “equivalent” for“ idiom” is“习语”, it also refers to a kind of a set phrase or sentence fixed by long usage. From the above definitions we can extract two basic criteria on which to decide whether or not an expression is an idiom(or:习语): Firstly, established and refined by long practical use, an idiom has a relatively high degree of stability of the lexical components. An idiom allows little or no variation in form under normal circumstances. In general, any change in the components will result in absurdities or even render the idioms meaningless. A speaker or writer cannot normally do any of the following with an idiom unless he or she is consciously making a joke or attempting play on words: a. Change the order of the words in it (e.g.* “at sevens and sixes” instead of “at sixes and sevens”); b. Delete a word from it (e.g.* “a kettle of fish” instead of “a nice kettle of fish”); c. Add a word to it (e.g.* “to show one’s white teeth” instead of “to show one’s teeth”); d. Replace a word with another (even with a synonymous word) (e.g.* “the pear of one’s eye ” instead of “the apple of one’s eye”) e. Change its grammatical structure (e.g.* “a king may be looked at by a cat” instead of “a cat may look at a king”). Similarly in Chinese we can only say: “七零八落” not “八零七落;”“无的放矢”not “无的放箭”, although “矢”and “箭” both mean “arrow”. However, just as what has been mentioned above, sometimes, either for the sake of sarcasm or for the sense of humor or for the sake of style, we can create, as a makeshift, some irregular variants from the original idioms, but these irregular variants are transient, and may not be acknowledged by people as a whole: (1) “to read more than one can chew” is from “to bite off more than one can chew”; (2) “be dressed to the teeth” is from “to be armed to the teeth ”. Similarly in Chinese: (3) “一箭三雕”（to shoot three hawks with one arrow）is an irregular variant of the set phrase “一箭双雕”（to shoot two hawks with one arrow）; (4) “权令智昏”(to be blinded by lust for power) from“利令智昏” (to be blinded by lust for gain); Sometimes for rhetorical effect, an idiom can be made brief with only the core element remained: (5) The hotel was expensive, the food was poor and the bad weather was the last straw. In this sentence, “the last straw” is adapted from the idiom “It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.” (6) Make hay. The market is good now don’t miss the chance. Here, “make hay” is abbreviated from the idiom “Make hay while the sun shines”. Such adaptation usually calls for the familiarity of the idiom by the reader to recognize the real meaning. Secondly, an idiom often ca