Chinese phrases, Mandarin sentence – How to say “Great minds think alike” in Chinese: 英雄所见略同 ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lue4 tong2. ying1 xiong2 (英雄 noun, heroes) suo3 (所 pronoun, what) jian4 （见 verb, see) lue4 (略 adverb, roughly) tong2 (同 adjective, same, alike).
英雄所见略同 ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lue4 tong2 literally means: What heroes see is roughly the same. How should we use it in conversation?
Here is an example:
A: “This summer I’ve decided to take intensive Chinese lessons.”
这个夏天我决定去上密集中文课。
zhe4 ge5 xia4 tian1 wo3 jue2 ding4 qu4 shang4 mi4 ji2 zhong1 wen2 ke4.
B: “Really? Me too. I have already paid for the course.”
真的吗？我也是。我以经付了学费了。
zhen1 de5 ma1? wo3 ye3 shi4. wo3 yi3 jing1 fu4 le5 xue2 fei4 le5.
A: “Great minds think alike.”
英雄所见略同。
ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lei4 tong2.
英雄 Ying1 xiong2 mean: Extraordinary outstanding figure. Refers to the people with superior opinion or outstanding and intelligent leaders. So, there are many kinds of heroes. For example, Hercules is a famous Greek legend hero, and he is known for his great strength; Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese heroine, she has dedicated her life to freeing Burma from a repressive dictatorship and creating democracy without violence. Some heroes or heroines are well known by people in the world, and some are so called 无名英雄 wu2 ming2 ying1 xiong2 unsung heroes. So many heroes in various fields are not recognized or honored. Even bees in the summer are the unsung heroes, they help with the reproduction of plants and give people honey, and are super famous for their buzzzzzzzzzzz sound too (maybe the sound buzz inspired the film maker to make the famous Toy Story Buzz Lightyear?
For female heroes or heroines, we call them 巾帼英雄 Jin1 guo2 ying1 xiong2. 巾帼 originally means women’s headdress, and thus later, people use part of women’s wear to represent women in general. So, 巾帼 means women. We have a phrase called 巾帼不让须眉 jin1 guo2 bu2 rang4 xu1 mei2 – women are not inferior to any man. Xu1 mei2 须眉 originally means beard and eyebrows, and later people used some part of men’s feature to represent men in general.
Ancient China has a famous 巾帼英雄 and her name is called Mulan 木兰 mu4 lan2 or 花木兰 hua1 mu4 lan2。
See http://www.chinesetolearn.com/?p=351 for more info about Ballad Mulan.
Jet Li VS Wu Shu Master： Jet Li is one of China’s martial art heroes.
Lady general Hua Mulan
Taiwan (Republic of China) Military song -Heroes and good guys in one class 英雄好漢在一班 ying1 xiong2 hao3 han4 zai4 yi4 ban1