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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The aim of the present study is to research two morphological processes: acronym and compounding (phrasal compounds/ circumlocution) and one syntactic category which are 'existential sentences' in science fiction short stories. The present paper identifies different types and rates of existential sentences. In this respect , 'bare existential and locative’ read the high percentages and may be contrasted with other classifications of English existential sentences which have a verb other than 'be' and a definite expression. 'Phrasal compounds' vary in rates as they constitute notable percentage for those that involve 'lexical means and lexical relations' followed by 'prepositional compounds' , 'conjunctional compounds' , and those invo
... Show MoreThe novel is the revelation of the attitudes of every age. And the writers do not know the winner of their stroke to express these events، The research has been working on a descriptive-analytical approach based on the American Comparative School، Al-Shahez's novel explores the work of the nobly and the film by Hamoun by Dariush Mehrjui By relying on the main characters of these two narratives, they depict a picture of Egypt and Iran From the symbolic lines of these works. In fact, the authors of this research have tried to initiate the introduction and analysis of these two works In fact, the authors of this research have tried to initiate the introduction and analysis of these two works.
The results of the research show that
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This research Sought to identify the correlation relationships and the impact of each of the job description and perceived organizational support, Excellent Job performance of the heads of academic departments in the faculties of the University of Sulaymaniyah Iraqi Kurdistan Region, totaling (89) as President, and to achieve this was Default plan includes research variables as well as the formulation of a number of preparation fundamental assumptions, and researchers used a questionnaire for this purpose as a tool head of the collection of data and information, as it was distributed (80) copies, and the number of retrieved them (76) a copy of a valid statistical analysis, as well as conducting personal i
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The experiment was conducted inside a glasshouse at the Department of Biology/
Education college Ibn- Alhaitham/ Baghdad University during the growing season 2010-2011. The aim of the study was to assess the influence of increasing of NaCl concentration in
the nutrient solution and different concentrations of proline as spray on the vegetative growth
on the chlorophyll content, soluble carbohydrates percentage, flowers number and the proline
content of vegetative growth. The aim of this study was also to determine the satiable
concentration of proline while decrease the injerion. Effect of NaCl on the studied traits of
two hyborids of tomato plants namely Olga F1 and Hymar F1. Sodium chloride concentration
of 0
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This research was interested in studying the phrase “I don’t know” in the Lisan al-Arab dictionary, and Lisan al-Arab was based on collecting its material from five dictionaries, including: Tahdhib al-Lugha, al-Muqamah, al-Sahih, and the footnotes of Ibn Berri, al-Nihaya and Gharib al-Hadith. The objection to this phrase, and the discussion of its various implications among linguists and the clarification of the closest and most famous content to it according to the data presented to the researcher in his research journey, and to reach this goal, the research division into a preface, five demands and a conclusion and followed the list of sources and references. To define the lexicon of Lisan al-Ar
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Mishrif Formation is the main reservoir in oil-fields (North Rumaila, South Rumaila, Majnoon, Zubair and West Qurna) which located at Basrah southern Iraq. The Inductively coupled plasma-Mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) was used for the water chemistry analysis and Scanning Electron Microprobe (SEM) for the purpose of mineralogy diagnosis. A weak acidic water of salinity six-time greater than seawater plays a role in generating the formation pressure and controlling the fluid flow. The potentiometric subsurface maps were modeled and the direction of super-pressure sites that are of a great importance in the oil exploration were marked to pay attention during future drilling.
The solar radiation plays an important role on the energy balance of the earthatmosphere, which is the main source of energy. Also the solar radiation is a main factor of all applications which use a solar energy as renewable energy source. The purpose of this research is to study the monthly average changes for solar radiation for the period from 1985 to 1989 by using satellite Antenna Alignment from (NASA). The result shows that the monthly average radiation changes from one year to another because of the changing of it component of atmosphere, (gases, clouds and Aerosols) and as an enhancement for this conclusion, we compared the results with the monthly average radiation at clear atmosphere where the change was slig
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