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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
Tue Mar 26 2019
Journal Name
International Journal Of Mathematics And Mathematical Sciences
Stability and Bifurcation of a Prey-Predator-Scavenger Model in the Existence of Toxicant and Harvesting
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In this paper a prey-predator-scavenger food web model is proposed and studied. It is assumed that the model considered the effect of harvesting and all the species are infected by some toxicants released by some other species. The stability analysis of all possible equilibrium points is discussed. The persistence conditions of the system are established. The occurrence of local bifurcation around the equilibrium points is investigated. Numerical simulation is used and the obtained solution curves are drawn to illustrate the results of the model. Finally, the nonexistence of periodic dynamics is discussed analytically as well as numerically.

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Publication Date
Tue Jun 01 2021
Journal Name
Political Sciences Journal
The economic dimensions of the railway link between Iraq and Kuwait and the role of national alternatives (Faw port and the dry canal as a model(
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   Decision-makers in each country work to define a list of internal and external interests, goals and threats to their countries according to the nature of their awareness of these interests, goals and threats. 

  Hence, Iraq is not an exception to this rule, and the process of evaluating its interests and the objectives of its foreign policy is subject to the pattern of awareness of decision-makers and the influencing forces in defining its basic interests, which often witness some kind of difference in defining them, evaluating their importance and determining the size of the threats they face. And among these interests and threats that have witnessed a difference in the assessment of their

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Publication Date
Thu Dec 01 2011
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The reality and fundamentals of the poultry industry and its implications on the prices of eggs and chickens in Iraq for the period from 2000 to 2009 (analytical study)
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Despite all the possibilities held by Iraq for the production of poultry , but there is low and clear in the level of production and a rise in costs and a decline in per capita consumption is due to a number of reasons, including poor investment , stop government subsides , dumping policies , market Bolmottagat imported , the contribution of the merchant squandering of national capacity , weak base material for the growth of this sector , the security situation and the crisis of energy and others .

Despite all this research has shown that there are great investment opportunities in this very sector of the market size and absorptive capacity of his and the growth of per capita income  and level of cul

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Publication Date
Tue Apr 01 2014
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Study the eifficiency of land transportation in the economic development under transference to the economic market, the general company of land transportation – case study –
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Land Transport regards a main element in the In Fra – structure of the national economy where distance and time shortness, open new opportunities of work, develop the different regions and rise the standard of living….

It is necessary to emphasize that the circumastances surrounding Iraq such as wars, economic sanctions, blockade occupation effected negatively upon economic Indicators of land Transportion including Value of output Value added contraction of Investment allocation and  Investment expend tuer and the period of implementation and fulfillment of the projects of Land Transport to be ready to offer their service in underdeveloped country Like Iraq aiming to satisfy Fast and acomprehensi

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Publication Date
Fri Dec 30 2022
Journal Name
Journal Of The College Of Education For Women
Constructing Imminent Carcinogenic Attack in English and Arabic Scientific Discourse: A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study
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Cancer is one of the critical health concerns. Health authorities around the world have devoted great attention to cancer and cancer causing factors to achieve control against the increasing rate of cancer. Carcinogens are the most salient factors that are accused of causing a considerable rate of cancer cases. Scientists, in different fields of knowledge, keep warning people of the imminent attack of carcinogens which are surrounding people in the environment and may launch their attack at any moment. The present paper aims to investigate the linguistic construction of the imminent carcinogen attack in English and Arabic scientific discourse. Such an investigation contributes to enhancing the scientists’ awareness of the linguistic co

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Publication Date
Thu Jan 01 2026
Journal Name
Global Heart
Awareness, Willingness, and Concerns about Clinical Trial Participation among Iraqi Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study
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Publication Date
Mon Oct 08 2018
Journal Name
Bulletin Of The Iraq Natural History Museum (p-issn: 1017-8678 , E-issn: 2311-9799)
TOTAL ORGANIC CARBON (TOC) PREDICTION FROM RESISTIVITY AND POROSITY LOGS: A CASE STUDY FROM IRAQ
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     The open hole well log data (Resistivity, Sonic, and Gamma Ray) of well X in Euphrates subzone within the Mesopotamian basin are applied to detect the total organic carbon (TOC) of Zubair Formation in the south part of Iraq. The mathematical interpretation of the logs parameters helped in detecting the TOC and source rock productivity. As well, the quantitative interpretation of the logs data leads to assigning to the organic content and source rock intervals identification. The reactions of logs in relation to the increasing of TOC can be detected through logs parameters. By this way, the TOC can be predicted with an increase in gamma-ray, sonic, neutron, and resistivity, as well as a decrease in the density log

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Publication Date
Sun Oct 01 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of The Faculty Of Medicine Baghdad
A Comparative Study between Dusting and Fragmentation in Intracorporeal Laser Lithotripsy in Distal Ureteric Stone
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حصاة الحالب واعراضها تؤثر على حياة المريض بصوره سلبيه، عدة علاجات متوفرة لعلاج حصاة الحالب من ضمنها مراقبه المريض، استخدام ادويه تفتيت الحصاة، استخدام موجات الفوق الصوتية تفتيت الحصاة بناظور الحالب، استخراج الحصاة جراحيا او بالناظور البطني, استخدام ناظور الحالب وتفتيت الحصاة بالليزر هي الطريقة المفضلة لعلاج حصاة اسفل الحالب. الهدف من الدراسة:لمقارنه تأثير ومضاعفات استخدام تقنيه الطحن او تقنيه التكسي

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Publication Date
Thu Jan 01 2026
Journal Name
Global Heart
Awareness, Willingness, and Concerns about Clinical Trial Participation among Iraqi Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study
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Publication Date
Mon Dec 31 2018
Journal Name
Journal Of The Faculty Of Medicine Baghdad
Dyslipidemia and CA15-3 serum level in Iraqi Women with Breast Tumor: A Comparative Study
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