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.
This paper details the process of designing, analysing, manufacturing, and testing an integrated solid-state hydrogen storage system. Analysis is performed to optimise flow distribution and pressure drop through the channels, and experimental investigations compare the effects of profile shape on the overall power output from the fuel cell. The storing of hydrogen is given much attention in the selection of a storage medium, and the effect of a cooling system to reduce the recharging time of the hydrogen storage vessel. The PTFE seal performed excellently, holding pressure over 60 bar, despite requiring changing each time the cell is opened. The assembly of the vessel was simple and straightforward, and there was no indication of pressure
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Abstract
The study aims to find out the impact of expectations and perceptions in determining the position of the customer service quality received by him. Represent the expectations and perceptions customer’s key of service quality determinants. The customer's requirements and needs main pivot, who must be built all events and activities and efforts of service organizations, including the hotel and organizations that operate in an environment known as highly competitive , intensification and complexity of the conditions set by the customer and increasing day after day. The study sample of three Luxury hotels in Kurdistan region of Iraq a model. The use of service quality m
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Investigation of mesomorphic properties of new 1,3,4-thiadiazolines (which are synthesised via many steps in Scheme 1) was carried out in this study. These compounds are designed to have a heterocyclic unit, a carboxylate linkage group and a polar ether chain at the end of the molecule adjacent to the benzene ring, which enhance the dipolar interactions forces (varied from one to eight carbons) to investigate the association properties of their phases. The structure of the target compounds and the intermediates were confirmed by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, mass and FTIR spectral techniques. Polarised microscopic studies revealed that all the compounds in the series exhibited enantiotropic liquid crystalline properties. This was further confirmed using
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Student performance may influence by several factors in all his study levels such as primary school, intermediate school and even in his college; some of these factors are psychological factors, social factors, and the factors which correlate with student environment.
In this paper we study some of these factors to discover their influence by using canonical correlation analysis to analyze the data. Many conclusions are discovered to help who focuses student performance or to make it pest in future.
The research aims to identify the possibility of applying environmental fines to commercial shops and restaurants to reduce the environmental pollution represented by the wastes generated from them. The research sample was divided into two groups, including the first (20) commercial shops (meat shops and slaughter it, fruits & vegetables, legumes and accessories) and second (30) Restaurant in the city of Baghdad on both sides of Karkh and Rusafa. The quality of the waste was classified into carton, plastic, aluminum, glass, paper, cork and food waste. The study revealed the possibility of applying environmental fines to restaurants and shops to reduce the waste generated from them throughout the year and to apply continuous monitorin
... Show MoreThis research deals with number of novels for Marguerit Doras , specially A Bridge Towards Basfic and The Lover . we specialize the first chapter for discussing a very important issue , which is the Maraguerit Doras novelist world in another word the most important themes . that we discuss and through that we tried to clerify the privacy the characters of Marguerit Doras in comparative with her own generation and in the second chapter we discussed the most important characteristics of the romantic hero spedially the characteristics of women in her novels.
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This research aims to discuss an important issue because of its role in increasing the efficiency of financial markets and boost investor confidence by a insider trading, which arises as a result of leaking secret information to some investors and reliable in the process of trading shares in the Iraq Stock Exchange And thus obtain abnormal profits at the expense of other investors. Research was based on the assumption that " Where shortcomings in local regulations relating to disclosure and insider trading in accounting information leads to the activate the phenomenon of insider trading in accounting information in the Iraq Stock Exchange and including a negative impact on investors' decisions ". and Because of the difficulty the discove
... Show MoreAlmost human societies are not void of poverty, as the latter accompanied the emergence of humanity, and it, thus, represents an eternal problem. To advance an individual's reality and raise the level of the poor social classes, social security networks have been established. Such networks operate in society following social systems and laws to provide food, and material support. Besides, such networks help to rehabilitate the individual academically and vocationally. They empower vulnerable groups through the establishment of courses and workshop, provide (conditional) subsidies related to the health and educational aspects in order to achieve the sustainable development goals of (2030), and apply developmental roles of social safety ne
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