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.
The present study attempts to shed light on some biological aspects and characteristics of Piaractus brachypomus, including some biometrics, phenotypic and feeding pattern that characterizes this species. Besides, the study touches upon the body shape and the Otolith. These fish species have recently been seen frozen in the Iraqi local market. The standard length of fish specimens in this study reach 26.55cm it exceeded the specimens of Pacu fish collected from other studies from other countries, As well the specimens weight was 632gm it exceeded other studies mentioned in this manuscript. As the irregularity in the distribution of teeth rows, especially in the lower jaw was clear in our specimens. The average weight of some skull b
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The majority of Iraqi translator-student have problems at two main levels: the conceptual level and the productive level. From different perspectives, such problems are either related to ‘language’ or to ‘cognition’. This binary view is an indication to the implicit and interchangeable relationship between language and cognition. The relationship between cognition language and translator starts with the first language and its effect on the Iraqi translators. Identifying the effect is the aim of the present study. It is hypothesized that Iraqi students are negatively influenced by the problems and weaknesses of first language schema. This reflects the major claim and later concludes that first language instruction in the Iraq
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This study aims to know the role of strategic leadership to achieving competitiveness in industrial establishments by identifying the respondents’ perceptions about the level of availability of dimensions of leadership strategies (creativity and innovation, risk tolerance, available opportunities) in Bashir Al-Siksek & Partners Company for the manufacture of sanitary and plastic ware in Gaza strip
To achieve this, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to a sample of managers, auditors, accountants, and administrative employees in the study sample company. The questionnaire tool was distributed to 60 employees and employees, of which (52) were retrieved, or 86.6%, and (8) were excluded for la
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The nuclear structure included the matter, proton and neutron densities of the ground state, the nuclear root-mean-square (rms) radii and elastic form factors of one neutron 23O and 24F halo nuclei have been studied by the two body model of within the harmonic oscillator (HO) and Woods-Saxon (WS) radial wave functions. The calculated results show that the two body model within the HO and WS radial wave functions succeed in reproducing neutron halo in these exotic nuclei. Moreover, the Glauber model at high energy has been used to calculated the rms radii and reaction cross section of these nuclei.
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The electrical properties of polycrystalline cadmium telluride thin films of different thickness (200,300,400)nm deposited by thermal evaporation onto glass substrates at room temperature and treated at different annealing temperature (373, 423, 473) K are reported. Conductivity measurements have been showed that the conductivity increases from 5.69X10-5 to 0.0011, 0.0001 (?.cm)-1 when the film thickness and annealing temperature increase respectively. This increasing in ?d.c due to increasing the carrier concentration which result from the excess free Te in these films.
The neutron, proton, and matter densities of the ground state of the proton-rich 23Al and 27P exotic nuclei were analyzed using the binary cluster model (BCM). Two density parameterizations were used in BCM calculations namely; Gaussian (GS) and harmonic oscillator (HO) parameterizations. According to the calculated results, it found that the BCM gives a good description of the nuclear structure for above proton-rich exotic nuclei. The elastic form factors of the unstable 23Al and 27P exotic nuclei and those of their stable isotopes 27Al and 31P are studied by the plane-wave Born approximation. The main difference between the elastic form factors of unstable nuclei and the
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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent condition in women of reproductive age. It is characterized by androgen excess and chronic anovulation. Some trace elements, macroelements, and heavy metals have been linked to pathophysiological mechanisms of PCOS .
To study the alterations in the serum levels of the trace element manganese (Mn), some macroelements, magnesium(Mg) and calcium (Ca), and the heavy metals cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb), in obese and non-obese PCOS patients; and the association of these alterations with some of the hormonal changes occurring in PCOS.
The study was carried out at Kamal Al-Samarrai Hospital (Center for Infertility treatment and in vitro Fertilization "IVF") Baghdad- Iraq. Eig
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We need to know the basic facts concerning planning top and bottom limits including any critical levels or the threshold over which the cost would be much higher for land development. Therefore this paper concerned with Baghdad Municipality decision No.2/1004 dated 7/12/2004. The reason behind this decision is the hope to face up at least in the severe housing crisis in the city of Baghdad. This paper attempts to know the attitude of the local community in the general through a field study of people living near such dwelling where third floors are added of. This might indicate any positive or negative effects whether on short or long-term including its effect on the theoretical side including the population growth of Baghdad, the
... Show MoreBackground: The value of lateral cephalometric radiographs to evaluate the pharyngeal airway is limited because it provided 2-dimensional (2D) images of complex 3-dimensional (3D) anatomic structures. Three dimensional analyses of the airway volumes are required to understand oral and pharyngeal adaptations in mouth breathing and nasal breathing subjects. The aim of this study was to measure the pharyngeal airway volume and the size of the face, then compare between pharyngeal airway volume in mouth breathing and nasal breathing subjects and find the gender difference in each group, also to study the relation between pharyngeal airway volume and the size of the face. Material and Methods: Fifty patients including 28 males and 22 females wit
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