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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
Sun Jan 01 2023
Journal Name
Brazilian Dental Science
Wound healing effect of a one-week Aloe Vera mouthwash: a pilot study
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Publication Date
Mon Sep 08 2025
Journal Name
Expert Review Of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research
A comprehensive measurement of hemophilia economic burden in Iraq: a field-based study
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Publication Date
Wed Sep 15 2021
Journal Name
Arab World English Journal
How Impoliteness Is Portrayed in a School Context: The Marva Collins as a Case Study
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The present study attempts to examine verbal/nonverbal impoliteness in the classroom interaction and outside it in one of the movies, namely, The Marva Collins. Impoliteness, which is significantly studied within pragmatics, is a negative attitude towards particular behaviors. It always presumes to have emotional concerns for at least one participant who has caused it. This study is an attempt to examine verbal/nonverbal impoliteness in The Marva Collins movie. The study aims to investigate the different types of impoliteness strategies used in the four selected scenes and find out whether the speaker’s status has anything to do with the types of impoliteness. Besides, the functions performed are also examined by following a qual

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Publication Date
Wed May 06 2026
Journal Name
An-najah University Journal For Research - B (humanities)
Middle Eastern Culture in Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood: A Cognitive Corpus Stylistic Study
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Background: Understanding Middle Eastern Culture in literature is essential for engaging readers worldwide. A society's culture can be reflected through literature. To this end, this study aims to identify the stylistic patterns that reflect Middle Eastern culture in the selected data and to examine how the multilevel approach of this study helps to locate these patterns. Ibtisam Barakat’s Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007) memoir is selected as the data of the study. Methodology: the cognitive corpus stylistic approach is applied to identify language patterns and stylistic features in the selected data. The multilevel method targets the language patterns that reflect the culture of the Middle East in th

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Publication Date
Sat Oct 25 2025
Journal Name
Iet Networks
An Effective Technique of Zero‐Day Attack Detection in the Internet of Things Network Based on the Conventional Spike Neural Network Learning Method
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ABSTRACT<p>The fast evolution of cyberattacks in the Internet of Things (IoT) area, presents new security challenges concerning Zero Day (ZD) attacks, due to the growth of both numbers and the diversity of new cyberattacks. Furthermore, Intrusion Detection System (IDSs) relying on a dataset of historical or signature‐based datasets often perform poorly in ZD detection. A new technique for detecting zero‐day (ZD) attacks in IoT‐based Conventional Spiking Neural Networks (CSNN), termed ZD‐CSNN, is proposed. The model comprises three key levels: (1) Data Pre‐processing, in this level a thorough cleaning process is applied to the CIC IoT Dataset 2023, which contains both malicious and t</p> ... Show More
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Publication Date
Wed Nov 01 2017
Journal Name
Journal Of Computational And Theoretical Nanoscience
Solution for Multi-Objective Optimisation Master Production Scheduling Problems Based on Swarm Intelligence Algorithms
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The emphasis of Master Production Scheduling (MPS) or tactic planning is on time and spatial disintegration of the cumulative planning targets and forecasts, along with the provision and forecast of the required resources. This procedure eventually becomes considerably difficult and slow as the number of resources, products and periods considered increases. A number of studies have been carried out to understand these impediments and formulate algorithms to optimise the production planning problem, or more specifically the master production scheduling (MPS) problem. These algorithms include an Evolutionary Algorithm called Genetic Algorithm, a Swarm Intelligence methodology called Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA), Bat Algorithm (BAT), T

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Publication Date
Sun Feb 05 2023
Journal Name
مجلة تكريت للعلوم الادارية والاقتصادية
The role of strategic auditing of human resources management in crystallizing organizational capabilities: A prospective study at the University of Baghdad
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دور التدقيق الاستراتيجي لإدارة الموارد البشرية في بلورة القدرات التنظيمية دراسة استطلاعية في رئاسة جامعة بغداد

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Publication Date
Sun Dec 01 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The Determinants of Total Factor Productivity Growth: an Analytical Study of a Cross Section of Countries for the Period (2003-2016)
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            This study tests the effect of a large number of independent variables that control the growth of the total productivity, which amounted to 112 variables, gathered from what is mentioned in the specialized theoretical and applied literature. The data for these variables were taken from global reports of sound international organizations and reliable databases covering the period 1991-2016. The data of the dependent variable, the growth of the total factor productivity, were taken from the database of the world development indicators. The study covered 61 countries for which data were available. The study included three regression models to explain

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Publication Date
Thu Feb 06 2020
Journal Name
Political Sciences Journal
Self-immuniztion: integration of Russian strategic performance a study in the geopolitical orientation circles "of the stage of president putin"n
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In the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Federal Republic of Russia witnessed a setback in the overall strategic performance of the country, as it went through a stage of performance flop between the orientation towards Europe in the era of President Boris Yelsen (1991-1999), or the change of direction towards Eurasia, as the Russian Federation managed After President Vladimir Putin assumed power in 2000, from rebuilding the same state and preserving national unity and social cohesion, as well as building a phased military doctrine that made clear moves in Russian strategic thought and future directions towards regions of eternal importance in Russian strategic perception Lack of a set of motivations based on it:

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Publication Date
Sat Jun 28 2025
Journal Name
Journal Of Physical Education
The effect of using the strategy Learning by playing for some skills handball patting According to the curriculum for female students Second stage, College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Baghdad
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The aim of the research was to identify  On the effect of the learning-by-play strategy on learning some handball skills among second-stage female students,Comparing the results of students' performance before and after implementing the learning by playing strategy,Providing development proposals for teaching handball skills in light of the research results.,I dependresearcherCurriculumexperimentalIn research procedures as an appropriate approach to achieving research objectives,For two groups, one experimental and the other control,Community of female studentsSecondFor the academic year 2024-2025, consisting of (4Female people (numbering)151) StudentChosen.Research sample30 female students from Section (B) were selected and (4) fe

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