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.
In this work, we focused on studying 1,4-naphthoquinones and their derivatives, and knowing the methods of preparing them using different auxiliary agents and forming derivatives containing heterocyclic rings, active groups and saturated rings containing heterogeneous elements . In addition, due to their strong antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activity, 1,4-naphthoquinone compounds biological importance and are considered a source of various pharmaceutical compounds.
The present study attempts to give a detailed discussion and analysis of parenthetical constructions in English and Arabic, the aim being to pinpoint the points of similarity and difference between the two languages in this particular linguistic area.The study claims that various types of constructions in English and Arabic could be considered parenthetical; these include non-restrictive relative clauses, non-restrictive appositives, comment clauses, vocatives, interjections, among others. These are going to be identified, classified, and analyzed according to the Quirk grammar - the approach to grammatical description pioneered by Randolph Quirk and his associates, and published in a series of reference grammars during the 1970
... Show MoreCriticism is inherently impolite and a face-threatening act generally leading to conflicts among interlocutors. It is equally challenging for both native and non-native speakers, and needs pre-planning before performing it. The current research examines the production of non-institutional criticism by Iraqi EFL university learners and American native speakers. More specifically, it explores to what extent Iraqi EFL learners and American native speakers vary in (i) performing criticism, (ii) mitigating criticism, and (iii) their pragmatic choices according to the contextual variables of power and distance. To collect data, a discourse-completion task was used to elicit written data from 20 Iraqi EFL learners and 20 American native speaker
... Show MorePreparing teacher occupies the attention of many thinkers and philosophers since the age of
kaldinics ( people of mesoptam / 2342 pH ) to the Islamic age where moslems philosophers
focus their attention on thought and philosophy where the philosophy of that teaching
depends on : teacher , student and family begin .
So , the issue of preparing and training teacher occupies the attention of education scientists
depending on his vital and important role in implementing of teaching policies in philosophies
and Islamic educational thought , therefore , the preparing and development of the teacher
regards as one of the basics of teaching development because of its importance in
development of teaching performance and th
This study showed that the lens in baloot muluki fish Chondrostoma regium is transparent, spherical shape, and solid in textures, while in the tree frog Hyla arborea savignyi, freshwater turtles Clemmys caspia caspia, white–eared bulbul Pycnonotus leucotis and brown rat Rattus norvegicus are transparent, soft and biconvex, it is very soft in white–eared bulbul. There are many significant differences have been recorded between the average weight lens and the total concentration of the protein in the lens all studied animals. Electrical migration process for lens proteins showed that there is one bundle of crystalline –? and one bundle also crystalline–? in all studied species, either crystalline–? may represent one bundle character
... Show MoreThis study came for the reason that some project administrations still do not follow the appropriate scientific methods that enable them to perform their work in a manner that achieves the goals for which those projects arise, in addition to exceeding the planned times and costs, so this study aims to apply the methods of network diagrams in Planning, scheduling and monitoring the project of constructing an Alzeuot intersection bridge in the city of Ramadi, as the research sample, being one of the strategic projects that are being implemented in the city of Ramadi, as well as being one of the projects that faced during its implementation Several of problems, the project problem was studied according to scientific methods through the applica
... Show MoreBackground: Hyperplastic polyps account for 30–93% of gastric polyps. Recently, there have been studies about the development of dysplasia in this type of polyp. Every cell in the body contains the p53 gene, which has anti-cancer properties. Objective: The sensitivity of immunohistochemical expression of p53 is evaluated among gastric hyperplastic polyps with and without dysplasia and gastric adenomatous polyps to know its usefulness as a diagnostic marker. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was done on fifty formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded blocks of gastric polyps (44 hyperplastic polyps without dysplasia, 3 hyperplastic polyps with dysplasia, and 3 adenomas). Cases were collected from the archives of the pathology d
... Show MoreThe objective of this study is to explain the role of credit policies in agricultural development of Iraq during the period 1979-1989 which were represented by the policy of co-operative agricultural bank the organization that responsible to finance agricultural sector for various reasons. It has been shown that there was no clear credit policy existed during the period concerned due to the differences between loans from year. The loan growth rate was low in general comparing with objectives of the agricultural development plans, a low production rates comparing with loans paid, the growth rate of average number of trees in each donum and the growth rate of livestock number was also low.In conclusion there should be a clear plan for cred
... Show MoreThe organizations and institutions of the developed countries have given attention to the subject of the knowledge economy by using advanced technology in the function of tax examination because of the important and effective role in ensuring the accuracy of the tax accounting process procedures, But the General Commission of taxes is still using traditional methods in the field of tax examination which affects the performance of its work. This research aims to explain the level of effect on introducing advanced methods of Economics and knowledge represented by advanced communication technology in the field of practicing tax examination function in the General Commission of taxes, A questionnaire has been used as a mea
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