Tools
Wrench (扳手) - Any of various hand or power tools, often having fixed or adjustable jaws, used for gripping, turning, or twisting objects such as nuts, bolts, or pipes. Other pictures here.
Monkey Wrench - A hand tool with adjustable jaws for turning nuts of varying sizes. I don’t know what monkey wrench is in Chinese.
There is a common idiom that uses monkey wrench.
Examples:
“He threw a monkey wrench into our plans.”
“The boss threw a monkey wrench into our plans when he said we’d have to work Saturday.”
“The weak dollar can throw a monkey wrench into your international travel plans.”
“Kim Jong-Il recently threw a monkey wrench into the deal, slowing work on disabling its reactor at Yongbyon.”
The idiom is “to throw a monkey wrench into” something. This means to sabotage, ruin, or frustrate a project or a plan or a deal, etc.
Note: Most people think a monkey wrench looks like this:
But that is actually called a “pipe wrench.” In any case, when you hear someone say “monkey wrench,” they probably really mean a “pipe wrench.”
Chainsaw (电锯) - a portable power saw that has teeth linked together to form an endless chain.
Pliers (钳子) - A variously shaped hand tool having a pair of pivoted jaws, used for holding, bending, or cutting. Note: Pliers is a singluar noun even though it ends in ’s’.
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