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.
This study aims to identify the amount of the effect of the ability to learn the individuals within the organization on the accumulation of intellectual capital and the role it plays in improving the performance of the organization, and to achieve that, the researcher designed a questionnaire to collect data and information from the surveyed respondents and analyzed using SPSS software, the study concluded after testing hypotheses to have a direct impact between the capacity for organizational learning and the accumulation of intellectual capital, which in turn affects the accumulation of intellectual capital as a positive and direct impact on the performance of the organization, al
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The present study is entitled “Problems of Translating Holy Qur’an Antonyms into German: An Analytical Study”. It discusses some of the problems of translating Holy Qur’an verses that contain words so opposite in meaning to another word. The main concern of the study stresses some of the errors in translating the oppositeness of certain words of Holy Qur’an from Arabic into other languages like German, a problem that can be traced back to the fact that such words may have two opposites in meaning, one is considered and the other is completely neglected.
The errors in translating al Qur’an Antonyms can be summarized for several reasons: literal translation, ignorance of the different view
... Show MoreResearching the effects of the research and technological development contract, determining its extent and demarcating the boundaries of the obligations imposed in it, is the cornerstone of economic growth and development, because defining these obligations removes the ambiguity and conflict between interests, by stating the rights owed to each party and even trying to reconcile them, or impose protection by specifying guarantees that are compatible with the essence of the R&D contract, For the purpose of studying the subject thoroughly, we will divide this research into two sections. The first is devoted to identifying the parties to the research and technological development contract. As for the other topic, we will explain the obligation
... Show MoreObjective: Assessment of health problems and identify demographical information to elderly. Methodology:
it is a descriptive study, data were collected by the researchers depended on the direct interview with the
elderly by using the study instrument (questionnaire) as well as review the records of the geriatric.
Results: The majority of study sample (66%) were males and (24.3%) were within age group (70-74) years,
(44.7%) were widows, and (41.7%) did not read and write. This study applied the international classification
of diseases(short-table) in (11) items, which stated that most of the elderly were complaining from
health problems: debility of hearing (80.65%), eczema or allergies (69.35%), debility of vision (66.9
This study aimed at accounting for the role of talents management in consolidating organizational learning process at the Yemeni General Corporation For telecommunication. To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher designed a questionnaire and administered it. The sample of the study consisted of (166) employees (General Manager, Manager and Department Head). They were selected randomly out of a total Population of (291) employees during the Year 2019. The descriptive analytic approach was used t reach conclusions.
The finding of the study revealed existence of effect of talents management dimensions, all together and alone, (talents polarization, talents development, talents maintenance and ma
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This paper describes a practical study on the impact of learning's partners, Bluetooth Broadcasting system, interactive board, Real – time response system, notepad, free internet access, computer based examination, and interaction classroom, etc, had on undergraduate student performance, achievement and involving with lectures. The goal of this study is to test the hypothesis that the use of such learning techniques, tools, and strategies to improve student learning especially among the poorest performing students. Also, it gives some kind of practical comparison between the traditional way and interactive way of learning in terms of lectures time, number of tests, types of tests, student's scores, and student's involving with lectures
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That beliefs of self-efficacy is a dimension of personal, means the ability to overcome the tasks and challenging problems facing the individual, it is paying the person for the selection of requirements and decisions on strategies to overcome the problems, as well as affect the efforts and the extent of material consumption and summarized the research problem in the study of subject important is the beliefs of self-sufficiency that are related to the behavior of students and their problems and their ability to solve them. The research aims to build a measure of the beliefs of competence, and measured then you know the differences between males and females. applied the yardstick by which the researcher built on a sample of (300) students
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