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 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
... Show MoreThis paper aims at providing the teaching staff members with the necessary skills so as to become capable of tackling various situations, and treating daily problems that face students learning Spanish as a Second Language. This is made as an attempt to make teachers of foreign languages in general acquainted with modern trends of teaching with less complicated methods, specifically in teaching e earlier stages of foreign languages.
Abstracto:
En el presente trabajo pretendemos dotar al docente no nativo de Lenguas extranjeras, con algunos de los métodos necesari
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The research is an attempt to investigate experimentally the influence of teacher’s errors correction and students’ errors correction on teaching English at the College of Physical Education for Women. Errors are seen as a natural way for developing any language but teachers are puzzled the way they can correct these errors. So, this research gives some idea of using two types of errors correction. The sample of the research is female students of the first year stage at the College of Physical Education for Women of the academic year 2009-2010. The whole population of the research is (94) students while the sample is (64). Thus, the sample represents 68% from the population of the research. The sample represents It is hypothesized th
... Show MoreOptimization is essentially the art, science and mathematics of choosing the best among a given set of finite or infinite alternatives. Though currently optimization is an interdisciplinary subject cutting through the boundaries of mathematics, economics, engineering, natural sciences, and many other fields of human Endeavour it had its root in antiquity. In modern day language the problem mathematically is as follows - Among all closed curves of a given length find the one that closes maximum area. This is called the Isoperimetric problem. This problem is now mentioned in a regular fashion in any course in the Calculus of Variations. However, most problems of antiquity came from geometry and since there were no general methods to solve suc
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Allah Almighty has aggrandized the position of orphans and elevated their status in the society and has given the graces for those who sponsor the orphan and care for and protecting them, even those who rub their heads. The divine care is manifested in the verses of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran. Therefore, the whole world cared for the orphan, and called for the rights of the orphans in the conferences and the channels. But all that was little effort that does not meet what the orphan need and some were only ink on paper that were not applied. All that mentioned above is necessary in dealing with the study (the rights of orphans in the Old Testament and Islam, a Comparative Study). The study was divided into a Preface and four inquirie
... Show MoreA study of the hadiths of supplication orchestration
The study aimed to prepare a measure of metacognitive thinking commensurate with learning the skill, preparing educational units using the Claus Meyer model for metacognitive thinking, and learning the skill of defending the court in volleyball. To identify the effect of educational units using the model (and Claus Meyer) for metacognitive thinking and learning the skill of defending the court in volleyball. The two researchers used the experimental approach with the design of the experimental and control groups.The research community consisted of students of the second stage / College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences / University of Baghdad for the academic year 2021-2022, whose number is (385) st
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