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jcoeduw-918
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
Fri Mar 01 2013
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
An empirical Evaluation of the effect of service encounter on customer voluntary behavior: Exploration study of (TBI) customers
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Purpose: To determine the impact of service encounter in stimulating voluntary customer behaviors.

  • Approach / methodology: It was selected a sample of customers Bank Iraqi Trade (TBI) was (105) individual, using a questionnaire designed in the light of previous studies, was drafted scale and tested in the light of a group of statistical methods developed (reliability coefficient, reliability coefficient composite, convergence). Then test hypotheses through structural equation modeling.
  • Results: The behaviors and characteristics of the service provider in effect urged bank customers to perform voluntary extra, as the service environment service encounter

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Publication Date
Mon Sep 25 2017
Journal Name
Biomedical And Pharmacology Journal
Comparative Study of the Effect of Incorporating SiO2 Nano-Particles on Properties of Poly methyl Methacrylate Denture Bases
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Publication Date
Sat Apr 01 2023
Journal Name
Alexandria Engineering Journal
Employing Sisko non-Newtonian model to investigate the thermal behavior of blood flow in a stenosis artery: Effects of heat flux, different severities of stenosis, and different radii of the artery
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Publication Date
Thu Sep 15 2022
Journal Name
F1000research
Comparison between the effects of two treatment regimens from GINA guidelines step 3 on quality of life and inflammatory biomarkers of pediatric asthmatic patients: an observational study
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Background: Asthma is a complicated condition characterized by chronic airway inflammation and airflow restriction, resulting in various respiratory symptoms such as shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness. The research intended to evaluate and compare the clinical outcomes of two interchangeable treatment regimens administered to a group of Iraqi asthmatic children.

Methods: This observational clinical study was conducted on a sample of pediatric Iraqi asthmatic patients in the central pediatric hospital in Baghdad. The study enrolled asthmatic children with moderate persistent asthma, who a specialized physician had diagnosed. Patients had been allocated

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Publication Date
Thu Oct 01 2020
Journal Name
Biochemical & Cellular Archives
THE STUDY ON ABILITY OF ESCHERICHIA COLI ISOLATED FROM DIFFERENT CLINICAL CASES TO BIOFILM FORMATION AND DETECTION OF CSGD GENE RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCE CURLI (FIMBRIAE)
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A total of 165 clinical sample included Urine, Swab wounds and Burns were collected from Baghdad Governorate. Results showed that rate all isolates of E. coli was 50(30.3%) and rate of urine infection was 46(92%) and rate of swab wounds infection 4(8%). Where was diagnostic based on streaked on MacConkey agar, then single colony was transferred to Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB). Identification some of the biochemical test included: Catalase test, Oxidase test, Indole test, Methyl red, Vogues - Proskauer test and Citrate Utilization test. Then confirmed by the Vitek - 2 Compact System. The ability of E.coli isolate to biofilm formation to be studied it is considered one of the most important factors of virulence and has role in causing injury an

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Publication Date
Sat Mar 07 2026
Journal Name
Journal Of Baghdad College Of Dentistry
The effect of autologous bone marrow-derived stem cells with estimation of molecular events on tooth socket healing in diabetic rabbits (Histological and histomorphometric study)
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Background: Diabetes is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia due to an inability to produce insulin. Uncontrolled or poorly controlled diabetes is clinically associated with increased susceptibility to delay healing. Many recent researches have shown that stem cell therapy can be the best choice for treatment of this disease. The aims of this research were investigating regeneration of pancreatic beta cells of diabetic induced rabbits after stem cell transplantation. Materials and Methods: 64 rabbits weighting an average of (2.5 - 3 kg) were used in this experimental study, and divided into 4 groups as follows; group A ( contains 16 healthy rabbits regarded as control group ) , Group B ( contains 16 diabetic rabbits

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Publication Date
Wed Aug 01 2018
Journal Name
Collegian
Behaviour change interventions to improve medication adherence in patients with cardiac disease: Protocol for a mixed methods study including a pilot randomised controlled trial
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Publication Date
Fri Oct 30 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The effect of applying total quality management on the competitiveness from the point of view of the front-rows employees for customer service (An analytical study of Palestinian local banks)
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The study aimed to identify the effect of Total Quality Management on enhancing competitiveness through the opinions of employees of the front- rows of customer service in local Palestinian banks, the researcher adopted an analytical descriptive method through developing a special questionnaire to accomplish the study’s objectives and answer its questions. The study involved all the Palestinian local banks, with their scattered branches in West Bank. The study sample consisted of 3470 executive employees for banking services out of 4753 employees, in the rate of 73%, and the study sample reached (485) employees who were randomly selected working in the front -rows to provide services in the local Palestinian banks during the ye

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Publication Date
Fri Oct 10 2025
Journal Name
Pharmakeftiki
Genetic polymorphisms and adverse effects that affect the natalizumab clinical response: a review
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The clinical response to natalizumab in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) may be significantly influenced by genetic variation. Mutations in genes related to the drug’s mechanism of action or the pathological milieu of MS can contribute substantially to interindividual differences in treatment outcomes. This review aims to provide an overview of previous studies that have examined genetic polymorphisms associated with the clinical efficacy of natalizumab. A systematic literature search was conducted across the PubMed, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate databases using targeted keywords relevant to the subject matter. Several genetic loci were found to be linked to natalizumab responsiveness, including the integrin subunit alpha 4 (ITGA4

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Publication Date
Tue Jan 29 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of The College Of Education For Women
Geopolitical dimensions to build a dam on the downstream Renaissance (Egypt and Sudan)
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Varied uses of international rivers in the past few decades dramatically, resulting in this multiplicity of uses and all associated with it for the occurrence of freshwater scarcity activities, and thus an increase in conflicts and disputes around on the rights of each of the riparian countries to benefit from the waters of the river at various purposes, particularly the establishment of dams on some of them as is the case (Renaissance Ethiopian) big impact on downstream countries Dam (Egypt and Sudan), due to the Oukuahma at the end of the Nile Valley made them vulnerable to environmental fluctuations, political crises facing the Nile basin countries, and any reduction in the proportion of water is not only the Nile River, but for all r

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