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.
Abstract
The traffic jams taking place in the cities of the Republic of Iraq in general and the province of Diwaniyah especially, causes return to the large numbers of the modern vehicles that have been imported in the last ten years and the lack of omission for old vehicles in the province, resulting in the accumulation of a large number of vehicles that exceed the capacity of the city's streets, all these reasons combined led to traffic congestion clear at the time of the beginning of work in the morning, So researchers chose local area network of the main roads of the province of Diwaniyah, which is considered the most important in terms of traffic congestion, it was identified fuzzy numbers for
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The international organizations showed their interest in the marketable public relations, with their activities, means and strategies, they play a crucial role in marketing products, services and ideas of the institution. They are considered to be the link between the company and its public, They are responsible for presenting the institution to the public, with honest transmission of the information. This gives a good impression to the institution, in a way the institution and its products become consistent with the needs and interests of the public. Based on this, the research aims to identify the strategies used by the marketable public relations internationally. The r |
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 MoreBreast cancer is one of the most important malignant diseases all over the world. The incidence of breast cancer is increasing around the world and it is still the leading cause of cancer mortality An Approximately 1.3 million new cases were diagnosed worldwide last year. With areas rising increasing, risk factors for breast cancer including obesity, early menarche, alcohol and smoking, environmental contamination and reduced or late birth rates become more prevalent. In Iraq, breast cancer ranks first among types of cancers diagnosed in women. This study was conducted on one hundred twenty women with breast cancer that was evaluated and investigated for the possible role of the risk factors on the development of breast cancer in females. T
... Show MoreThe research problem revolves around the Iraqi public's use of digital television and cinematic websites، and their importance to the academic study and society، as it examines the public's relationship with these websites، usage habits، and the reasons for their interaction with them. And for the prevalence of this phenomenon of use، it was necessary to address the intensity، intentionality، and timing of use to theoretically root the subject of the study، which is one of the modern studies in Iraq and the Arab world. The survey approach، where the research was based on the theory of uses and gratifications that confer positivity and activity on the mass media audience.
The researchers designed
... Show MoreThe effect of compound machine on wheat/ AlNoor cultivar was studied based on some technical indicators. were tested under three speeds ( 2.541, 3.433 and 4.091km.hr-1) and three tillage depths (14, 16 and 18cm). The experiments were conducted in a factorial experiment under complete randomized design with three replications. The results showed that the 2.541km.hr-1 practical speed was significantly better than other two speed in all studied conditions. Except for the FC, which achieved the best results with the third speed 4.091 km.hr-1. mechanical parameters, plant growth parameters and yield and growth parameters. The 1
Colonialism invades the Third World countries, physically and psychologically. This article exposes but sample of the physical and psychological consequences of colonialism. The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019) by the British novelist, Christy Lefteri is a typical novel to diagnose the harsh circumstances of individuals within and after the disaster. Since it depicts characters from Asian countries, it would be a best representative for all Asian people who suffer colonialism. Migration toward anonymity is the mere option for the colonized people. Aftermath, they experience displacement, trauma, and the loss of identity.
Parties as active units in this process in order to work must have access to sources of funding in order to maintain their political presence in society and participate in the process of electoral competition, To win the election, bolstering the huge role that money has played in influencing the principle of equality among contestants in the elections. Those who own money will have a greater chance of winning the elections while less competitive opportunities for others who do not own the money or what they own does not give them the competitive ability to win elections. From this point of view, controlling political finance through legal regulation and institutional, media and popular monitoring has become an important requirement
... Show MoreBackground: Educational environment is one of the most important determinants of an effective curriculum. Students' perceptions of their educational environment have a significant impact on their behavior and academic progress. Objective: 1. To identify students’ perception to the educational environment.2. To identify any gender or class level differences in the students’ perception.Type of the study: This is a descriptive cross-sectional studyMethodology: The study was carried out on convenient sample of 150 students of 2nd and 5th grade. This study was done in Al Kindy Medical College, Baghdad, Iraq and conducted during the period from the 1st of October 2013 till the end of March 2014, by using DREEM questionnaire a validated uni
... 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
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