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A Study of the Problems of Learning and Translating Idioms
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Idioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others. The paper concentrates on idioms as a learning-translation problem; it makes no claim to be comprehensive or academically rigorous. Leech (1989) defines an idiom as follows: “An idiom is a group of two or more words which we have to treat as a unit in learning a language. We cannot arrive at the meaning of the idiom just by adding together the meanings of the words inside it. E.g.John and Mary usedto be hardup (='They had very little money'.)”(P.186) To be more exact, an idiom is a sequence of words which is semantically and syntactically restricted, so that they function as a single unit. From a semantic point of view, the meanings of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meanings of the idiomatic expression as a whole. Thus, fly off the handle, which means lose one's temper, cannot be understood in terms of the meanings of fly, off, or handle. The idiom phrase hot air, which means empty or boastful talk, is neither hot nor air; with hot air we are dealing with a set phrase where the meaning cannot be suggested on the basis of the two constituent words. The idiomatic meaning of spill the beans in So who spilt the beans (=told the secret) about her affair with David? has nothing to do with beans or with spilling in its literal sense. The foreign-language learner is left trying to figure out where and how the beans were spilt. From a syntactic viewpoint, the constituent parts of an idiom often do not permit the usual variability they display in other contexts. The point to be emphasized here is this: most idioms do not lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers; they are invariable and must be learned as wholes, but concord ofnumber, person and gender in the idiom phrase is still necessary, i.e. the verbs must be put into the correct form, and pronouns must agree with their antecedents: I don't give a hoot for her opinion! 2 • She doesn't give a hoot for my opinion! etc.)║He won, but only by the skin of his teeth2• She won, but only by the skin of her teeth• Iwon, but only by the skin ofmy teeth,I had to run for the train, and caught it by the skin of myteeth, etc.║He kept pullingmy arm, throwing me off my balance 2 • She kept pulling his arm, throwing him off his balance • We kept pullingher arm, throwingher offher balance, etc.2 The present paper is divided into five parts, as follows: Part I: An Overview; PART II: Learner’s Difficulties with Idioms; PART III: Some Pedagogical recommendations and Suggestions about Idioms; Part IV: Activities to Practice Idiomatic Expressions; Part V: Summary and Conclusion.

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Publication Date
Mon Sep 01 2025
Journal Name
The Peerian Journal
The Effect of Environmental Factors on Plant Growth: An Analytical Study of Environmental Variables and Their Physiological Response – A Review Article
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The essay discusses how different environmental factors affect plant growth by explaining how each factor affects the physiological processes within the plant. The essay begins by explaining the effect of temperature on plant growth, as high or low temperatures can significantly affect the rate of photosynthesis and lead to a reduction in water and nutrient absorption. It also discusses the light intensity impacting plants because the more appropriate the light intensity is, the more enhanced the plant's photosynthesis ability, and in the excess or insufficient light condition, the growth can be inhibited. Additionally, the article outlines the effect of water shortage on the plant because this leads to the closure of stomata to avoid water

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Publication Date
Mon Feb 18 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of Accounting And Financial Studies ( Jafs )
The Role of the financial Statements in Achieving of the Banking Supervision: An Applied Study in A sample of Iraqi Banks
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Banks are considered the main basis of financial sector ,so they must be submitted to sound and strict regulatory system and so as to ensure their operations and according to instructions and regulations , in order to maintain the integrity of the banking sector and financial sector in general .One of the importance regulatory tools that are adopted by the Iraqi Central Bank to control over the banks an financial and periodic statements that are provided by the banks in accordance with planned schedules .The financial statements of the banks must reflect clearly and accurately financial situation and the result of their activities during the period in which they represent to achiveing its purposes.So it has the goal of Search is statemen

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Publication Date
Fri Dec 15 2023
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Laser
Study the Impact of Silica Nanoparticles on the Properties of Several Dyes for the Fabrication of a Random Laser Gain Medium
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Random laser gain media is synthesized with different types of dye at the same concentration (1×10-3 M) as an active material and silicon dioxide NPs (silica SiO2) as scatter centers through the Sol-Gel technique. The prepared samples are tested with UV–Vis spectroscopy, Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), and Energy Dispersive X-ray Diffraction (EDX). The end result demonstrates that doped dyes with silica nanoparticles at a concentration of 0.0016 mol/ml have lower absorbance and higher fluorescence spectra than pure dyes. FESEM scans revealed that the morphology of nanocrystalline silica is clusters of nano-sized spherical particles in the range (25-67) nm. It is con

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Publication Date
Wed Sep 20 2023
Journal Name
Scientific Culture
THE REALITY OF THE PARTICIPATION OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS IN ACHIEVING THE GOALS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT/ A FIELD STUDY IN BAGHDAD GOVERNORATE
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Abstract In light of the changing conditions that prevail in society, and the intense competition that institutions and countries are forced to face, especially after the opening of markets, and the transformation of the world into what is called a small village, entrepreneurship has emerged as an important tool for dealing with the developments of societies, whether it is related to individual business projects or Economics for national business, leadership was the key to any driving force towards achieving growth. Today, women are no longer captive to a specific orientation, but rather all horizons and fields of work have been opened to them, and they have been able to occupy the most important economic, voluntary, service, and

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Publication Date
Sat Apr 01 2017
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The Effect of Strategic Intelligence in High performance organization A Survey Study for the Managers of Diseases and Kidney Transplant Center/ Medicine City-Baghdad
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The topic of strategic intelligence is considered as important topics that acquires the attention of organizations, Because of its role in supplying the decision-making centers by strategic ideas according to the opportunities and threats facing the organization, in an effort to improve the performance of their organizations to reach the high performance organization.

A lot of organizations lack to strategy guides the strategic intelligence towards achieving high performance organization.

This research aims to determine the level of strategic intelligence that characterized the leaders of diseases and kidney transplant center in Medicine city. What is the application level of the

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Publication Date
Thu Apr 30 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Organizational Agility according to Strategic Planning Directions A case study in the Ministry of Commerce / General Company for the trade of cars and machinery
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This research aims at the possibility of rationalizing business organizations according to the strategic planning directions which have been developed to deal with many problems faced by business organizations, including the General Company for Automobile and Machinery Trade which was chosen as a research society, and several research problems were diagnosed, including an increase in the numbers of employees who constitute hidden unemployment, lack of work in the system of job specialization, and the organizational structure which is the non-application of the company to a modern administrative model. The importance of the research is that the company being investigated is a pioneer in its field of work and seeks to achieve custo

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Publication Date
Fri Apr 12 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Balanced Scorecard (BSC) role And Six Sigma in improving strategic performance A sample study of the members of the General Company for Northern Cement
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Assessing performance efficiency is critical to the management need for oversight, planning, and continuous periodic evaluation of the multiple activities of Northern Cement State Company in order to determine the level of achievement of the objectives set, and to correct the deviations and delays that the evaluation shows and limitation of liability. What cannot be measured cannot be managed. The aim of this research is to highlight the impact of using BSC, financial and non-financial, to give comprehensive and clear picture of the company's performance and to measure the quality of its performance by using six-sigma and the level of deviations in achieving the planned goals. Therefore, four-key hypotheses were formulated for th

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Publication Date
Sun Jan 01 2017
Journal Name
Journal Of The College Of Languages (jcl)
SER Y ESTAR EN LA ENSEÑANZA Y EL APRENDIZAJE DEL ELE Verb (to be) in Learning and Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language
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Resumen

El presente trabajo nace de una inquietud por la enseñanza del español en Irak a nivel universitario especialmente ante las dificultades que los alumnos árabes en general, e iraquíes en particular, encuentran en su proceso de aprendizaje. Nuestra primera inclinación fue, pues, prestar una atención directa  y cercana al alumno como sujeto del aprendizaje, así como a lo que el alumno produce como resultado del mismo. En el presente trabajo pretendemos dotar al estudiante de los conocimientos lingüísticos necesarios para poder interaccionar en una variedad de situaciones y enfrentarse a problemas cotidianos, de manera que desarrolle las destrezas comunicativas que le permitan establecer una co

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Publication Date
Tue Jan 09 2024
Journal Name
Wasit Journal Of Sports Sciences
A Comparative Analytical Study of Some Biomechanical Variables and Their Relationship to The Accuracy of The Performance of The Shooting Skill of Jumping High in The Weak and Strong Foot the Players for Youth Handball
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The research aims to identify the most important variables affecting shooting from jumping high and compare them for the two foot the weak and strong, where the researchers adopted the descriptive method, and the sample was chosen by the intentional method, which consists of (4) players from the Iraqi Sports Army Club, where these variables were studied and their impact on The accuracy of aiming at the two men, and the researchers concluded that most of the players have more accuracy in aiming at the strong leg than at the weak leg, which leads to the loss of many real opportunities during the match because of the players changing the situation or wasting the available opportunity when the position of correction is an opportunity for the w

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Publication Date
Tue Aug 06 2024
Journal Name
Fullerenes, Nanotubes And Carbon Nanostructures
Preparation and characterization of PVA/MWCNT nanocomposites: a composition dependence study of structural, optical and mechanical properties
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