The present paper analyses the Shona–Chinese bilingual dictionary in relation with the teaching of the Chinese language to native speakers of the Shona language or teaching of the Shona language-to-Chinese people in Zimbabwe. The main aim of this paper is to give a critical analysis that will help improve this dictionary or other future similar dictionaries. The data used in this article are based on the headwords in the dictionary as well as the experience of teaching Chinese over 1 year. The Shona–Chinese bilingual dictionary is a remarkable step towards developing local Chinese teaching materials in Zimbabwe. The data analysis showed that to increase the usefulness of this dictionary as a complementary teaching reference book, there are a number of areas that need to be perfected. Some of the critical aspects that require attention include: the meanings of headwords should be defined as they are used in the target language, and all important headwords in daily conversations should be included in the dictionary. It was recommended that a more thoroughly revised dictionary should be produced to provide high-quality teaching materials of this sort.

The present study falls under social linguistics. In this study we attempt to use figurative language to compare Chinese and Shona societies. The central argument of the research in anchored by the claim that, figurative languages are an important repository of the culture. Therefore, figurative language (hence, cultural knowledge) should be given an important position the field of Second Language Teaching. Referring to one type of figurative language, Bromley (1984) further pointed out that, idioms "… add confusion and difficulty to learning of language and so they occupy a special position in teaching of language and reading". The research is expected to prove that language is an important repository and conduit of cultural knowledge. The research therefore advocates awareness of cultural conflict between speakers of different languages during various economic, political or social interactions. The figurative language will be grouped into 4 categories according to which aspect they show differences, namely; availability, edibility, cooking methods and eating customs.

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