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 aim of the research is to design educational software based on Web Quests and to measure its effectiveness in developing information search skills of students at the Department of Educational and Psychological Sciences. The research is experimental in nature using pre-post measurement. The research sample consisted of (91) male and female students from the second grade in the Department of Educational and Psychological Sciences, they were divided into two equal groups; the experimental group consisted of (47) students who adopted the educational software as a studying method, and the control group consisted of (44) students who follow the traditional method. The researchers prepared a list of skills for searching information and they
... Show MoreTo develop a petrol engine so that it works under the bi-engine pattern (producer gas-petrol) without any additional engine modifications, a single-point injection method inside the intake manifold is a simple and inexpensive method. Still, it leads to poor mixing performance between the air and producer gas. This deficiency can cause unsatisfactory engine performance and high exhaust emissions. In order to improve the mixing inside the intake manifold, nine separate cases were modelled to evaluate the impact of the position and angle orientation inside the intake manifold on the uniformity and spread of the mixture under AFR=2.07. A petrol engine (1.6 L), the maximum engine speed (8000 rpm), and bi-engine mode (petrol-producer ga
... Show MoreBackground: The final stage of endodontic therapy is complete obturation of the root canal system to provide as perfect as possible at the cementodentinal junction of the apical foramen. The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the sealing ability of injection molded thermoplasticized gutta percha and lateral condensation techniques with and without the use of sealers. Materials and Methods: Forty freshly extracted adult human maxillary central incisors with complete formed apices were utilized in this study. The teeth were randomly divided into four groups for evaluation of the apical seal. Group (1) lateral condensation gutta percha technique without sealer, (2) lateral condensation gutta percha technique with sealer, (3) Inject
... Show MoreObjective: To assess the clinical learning environment and clinical training for students' in maternal and child
health nursing.
Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted on non probability sample (purposive) of (175) students' in
Nursing College/ University of Baghdad for the period of June 19th to July 18th 2013. A questionnaire was used as a
tool of data collection to fulfill with objective of the study and consisted of three parts, including demographic,
clinical learning environment and clinical training for students' in maternal and child health nursing. Descriptive
statistical analyses were used to analyze the data.
Results: The results of the study revealed that the 65.1% of student at age which ranged b
This research aims to examine the relationship between learning organization and behavior of work teams. The variable of the learning organization took four dimensions depending on the study (sudhartna & Li, 2004): Common cultural values , communication, knowledge transfer and the characteristics of workers. The behavior of teams was identified on the basis of realizing of the respondents of their organization to work as a team where the research relied concepts applied in the study (Hakim , 2005) , and chose to research the case of a service organization for the study and relied on four dimensions of coordination , cooperation , sharing of information , the performance of the team, and was a curriculum approach and des
... Show MoreThe second half of the last century witnessed a great scientific revolution that was able to bring about wide changes in various fields, including the field of physical education, which plays a fundamental role in the process of change for the better, and which knocked all the doors of modern science in various aspects and from this perspective we see that students have different capabilities And interests and motives, which require providing a differentiated education, and this depends on the necessity of knowing each student and on the school’s ability to know appropriate strategies for teaching each student so there is no single way to teach so the research problem comes in experimenting with an educational method that works on
... Show MoreAbstract
In this work, two algorithms of Metaheuristic algorithms were hybridized. The first is Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm (IWO) it is a numerical stochastic optimization algorithm and the second is Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) it is an algorithm based on the intelligence of swarms and community intelligence. Invasive Weed Optimization Algorithm (IWO) is an algorithm inspired by nature and specifically from the colonizing weeds behavior of weeds, first proposed in 2006 by Mehrabian and Lucas. Due to their strength and adaptability, weeds pose a serious threat to cultivated plants, making them a threat to the cultivation process. The behavior of these weeds has been simulated and used in Invas
... Show MoreThe content of Furocoumarin derivatives (Psoralens) of Ruta Chalepensis L. (Whole plant) was studied by simple extraction with petroleum ether (b.p. 60-80Co). The results indicated that the plant contains a total of about (0.015%).
Investigation of these compounds by thin layer chromatography (TLC) revealed the presence of at least four compounds of which methoxsalen (8-methoxypsoralen) was isolated. It was identified and authenticated with a standard by spectral method, IR, NMR, Mass spectra and HPLC.This plant could be considered as a good source for supplying this compound, which is widely used in dermatological preparations.
Nanocomposites of polymer material based on CdS as filler
material and poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) as host matrix have
been fabricated by chemical spray pyrolysis method on glass
substrate. CdS particles synthesized by co-precipitation route using
cadimium chloride and thioacetamide as starting materials and
ammonium hydroxide as precipitating agent. The structure is
examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), the resultant film has
amorphous structure. The optical energy gap is found to be (4.5,
4.06) eV before and after CdS addition, respectively. Electrical
activation energy for CdS/PMMA has two regions with values of
0.079 and 0.433 eV.