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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GA Al Omran, AA Noaimi, Z Al Madfai, H Al Hamamy, Journal of the Faculty of Medicine Baghdad, 2012
The researchers reached many conclusions, the most important of which was the distinction of practitioners of sports activity with high degrees in the trait (social). At the same time, it was low in the trait (aggression –restraint-desisting) and non-practitioners were distinguished by sports activity with high degrees in the trait (aggression –restraint-desisting). In contrast, the degree was low in the trait (social), and there were significant differences in favor of practitioners of the activity of the athlete, Through the conclusions, the researchers recommend the need for university students to practice sports activities because of their positive impact on their health in general and on the deve
... Show MoreSeveral types of laser are used in experimental works in order to study the effects of laser on blood vessel. They differ from each other by a lot of properties mainly in wavelength, energy of the laser and pulse duration. In this study argon laser (488 nm- 514 nm) and continuous Nd: YAG laSer (1064 nm), have been applied to 50 samples of sheep blgod tesselS. Histologically, tha results of the study were different According to the txpe of L`sar used; apgon larer had distrabtave effects on $he blood vessal while continuous Nd: YAG laser Appeaped to be the safesd one on the blmod vessel architecture. This study concluded that argoj laser has da-aging ef&ect on
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The study aims to identify the level of cognitive beliefs, as well as to identify the level of self-organized learning strategies among intermediate school students. The study also aims to identify the differences in the level of self-organized learning strategies among intermediate school students in term of gender, branch (scientific, literary). In order to achieve the research objectives, the researcher designed a scale to measure the cognitive beliefs. As for the scale of self-organized learning strategies, the researcher adopted a scale of (Pintrich et al. 1991), which was translated by (Izzat Abdelhamid, 1999) , For self-organized learning strategies, the sample consisted of (400) students from the research population, whic
... Show MoreThe present study aims at empirically investigating the effect of vocabulary learning strategies on Iraqi intermediate school students’vocabulary performance and reading comprehension. The population of the present study includes all the 1st year male students of Al-Wark’a intermediate school of Al-Risafa 1/ General Directorate of Education for the first course of the academic year (2015-2016). To achieve the aim of the study ,a pre-test and post-test after (5) weeks of experiment are administrated .The sample of the present study consists of (100) subjects :(50) students as an experimental group and other (50) students as a control group . The subj
... Show MoreThe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an unprecedented disruption in medical education and healthcare systems worldwide. The disease can cause life-threatening conditions and it presents challenges for medical education, as instructors must deliver lectures safely, while ensuring the integrity and continuity of the medical education process. It is therefore important to assess the usability of online learning methods, and to determine their feasibility and adequacy for medical students. We aimed to provide an overview of the situation experienced by medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to determine the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of medical students regarding electronic medical education.
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Abstract
The current research aims at identifying any of the dimensions of organizational learning abilities that are more influential in the knowledge capital of the university and the extent to which they can be applied effectively at Wasit University. The current research dealt with organizational learning abilities as an explanatory variable in four dimensions (Experimentation and openness, sharing and transfer of knowledge, dialogue, interaction with the external environment ), and knowledge capital as a transient variable, with four dimensions (human capital, structural capital, client capital, operational capital). The problem of research is the following questio
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