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  
... Show MoreThe research aimed to find the effectiveness of teaching impact of the reflex learning strategy on the fifth class female student achievement of the geography content material). The researcher adopted the null hypotheses (there are no statistically significant differences at (0,05) level between the women score mean of the experimental group student who has been taught by the cement material assigned by the reflex learning strategy, and that of the control group who have been taught by the traditional method on the achievement test. The researcher adopted the post-test experimental design to measure students’ achievement. The population of the present study has been limited to the fifth literary class female stud
... Show MoreThe Local and Global Corporations are suffering of managerial and financial corruption phenomena, which leads them to loss and bankruptcy. So, it is necessary to search for tools which help prevent phenomena like this, and one of these tools is (corporate governance) which represent controlling tool that contribute in reducing corruption. this study aims at modifying (corporate governance system)in order to make it suitable with Iraqi government Corporations. the study depend upon main hypothesis which is (the performance level of the strategic perspective of governance system is depending upon work according to the perspective dimensions itself. From the main conclusions:-It is possible to building a strategic perspective
... Show MoreThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Peter and Wendy present universal ideas that exist in all times, despite being written in the beginning of the 20th century. Among the most significant ones is the concept of “home”. The article discusses the essentiality of the idea of “home” where the identity of an individual shapes, and where one’s spiritual, psychological, and physical being develop. It also studies the attitudes of each protagonist towards the concept of ‘home’ based on their understanding of it and according to their gender differences. The characters in both stories tread on the path of perplexity between leaving their homes and returning to them. Peter’s world is the world of imagination while Doro
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Social networking sites have become very popular since the beginning of the current decade and have become linked to our daily life. We follow the news, Analyses and opinions on the one issue in a way that attracts millions of users and the number grows every secon On Twitter, one of the most important social networking sites, all social groups rushed from the president to the last citizen to open accounts when they found themselves forced to do so . During the recent Gulf crisis, Twitter was buzzing with Twitter, which achieved the largest circulation globally. Instead of serving the issue and directing it to serve the Arab interest, most of the publications were on th |
The importance of the research in the preparation of special exercises to develop some types of basketball scoring as a contribution to help the physical education teacher to find successful educational alternatives. The purpose of the study was to prepare special exercises for the cognitive (cognitive) survey in the development of motor satisfaction and learning some types of Scoring for basketball for students. Learn about the effect of cognitive exercises in cognitive development in students. The survey included students from the first stage of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Science \ University of Diyala (159) divided into 6 people. The sample was randomized by (b) and (b) D) and after dispersion by the standard method In
... Show More‘Ode to a Nightingale’(1819) is a typical poem of a Romantic poet like John Keats, but
‘The Nightingale’(1798) is an uncharacteristic poem of a Romantic poet like Coleridge.
The paper proposes a comparison between Coleridge’s ‘The Nightingale’ and Keats’
‘Ode to a Nightingale’.Coleridge’s poem diverges from the Romantic norm; it carries some
characteristics new to Romantic poetry like the realistic and objective portrayals of nature and
the nightingale, while Keats’ poem adhere to the characteristics of Romantic poetry; it
portrays nature and the nightingale subjectively and unrealistically. Coleridge’s poem is very
much influenced by the scientific approaches to environment, and natural his
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 current research aims to identify the effect of using a model of generative learning in the achievement of first-middle students of chemical concepts in science. The researcher adopted the null hypothesis, which is there is no statistically significant difference at the level (0.05) between the mean scores of the experimental group who study using the generative learning model and the average scores of the control group who study using the traditional method in the chemical concepts achievement test. The research consisted of (200) students of the first intermediate at Al-Farqadin Intermediate School for Boys affiliated with the Directorate of General Education in Baghdad Governorate / Al-Karkh 3 wit
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