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.
China is the first Asian country in the Far East that has been invaded by a foreign power, after following a policy of isolation against the outside world. Although Britain was the first foreign power that penetrated China and had many concessions within its lands, it was not the only one that directed its interests toward china. Russia was one of the powers which were interested in China, considering the special relationships that related together the neighboring countries, like the problematic boundaries. However, after World War II, the Soviet Union tries to extend its influence and power over Asia, and China was the first country that fell under the campaign on the Soviet Union. In spite of the fact that the political role of the Uni
... Show Moreإن تجسيد الشعراء للجمال واقامته تمثالا مصورا مرئيا ، كان الهدف منه اولا اشاعة جو نفسي مريح في مقدمات قصائد المديح ، فهو الجزء البصري الممتع لمدركات حسية اخرى ترافقه، وأما المرامي الاخرى
ﻓﮭﻲ إﻣﺘﺎع اﻟﻨﻔﺲ إﻣﺎ ﺑﺎﺳﺘﺮﺟﺎع أﺟﻤﻞ ﺻﻮرة أو أﻧﻤﻮذج ﻗﺎﺋﻢ ﻓﻲ اﻟﺬاﻛﺮة، وﺟﻌﻠﮫ ﯾﺤﯿﺎ ﻣﻦ ﺟﺪﯾﺪ ﻟﺪواﻋﻲ اﻟﺤﻨﯿﻦ للاماكن والازمنة الاثيرة . أو الميل للتعبير عن الوعي الجمالي الذي يتصل بموضوع الج
... Show MoreAllah Almighty has aggrandized the position of orphans and elevated their status in the society and has given the graces for those who sponsor the orphan and care for and protecting them, even those who rub their heads. The divine care is manifested in the verses of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran. Therefore, the whole world cared for the orphan, and called for the rights of the orphans in the conferences and the channels. But all that was little effort that does not meet what the orphan need and some were only ink on paper that were not applied. All that mentioned above is necessary in dealing with the study (the rights of orphans in the Old Testament and Islam, a Comparative Study). The study was divided into a Preface and four inquirie
... Show MoreThis paper describes a practical study on the impact of learning's partners, Bluetooth Broadcasting system, interactive board, Real – time response system, notepad, free internet access, computer based examination, and interaction classroom, etc, had on undergraduate student performance, achievement and involving with lectures. The goal of this study is to test the hypothesis that the use of such learning techniques, tools, and strategies to improve student learning especially among the poorest performing students. Also, it gives some kind of practical comparison between the traditional way and interactive way of learning in terms of lectures time, number of tests, types of tests, student's scores, and student's involving with lectures
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A study of the hadiths of supplication orchestration
Optimization is essentially the art, science and mathematics of choosing the best among a given set of finite or infinite alternatives. Though currently optimization is an interdisciplinary subject cutting through the boundaries of mathematics, economics, engineering, natural sciences, and many other fields of human Endeavour it had its root in antiquity. In modern day language the problem mathematically is as follows - Among all closed curves of a given length find the one that closes maximum area. This is called the Isoperimetric problem. This problem is now mentioned in a regular fashion in any course in the Calculus of Variations. However, most problems of antiquity came from geometry and since there were no general methods to solve suc
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The present study discusses the problem based learning in Iraqi classroom. This method aims to involve all learners in collaborative activities and it is learner-centered method. To fulfill the aims and verify the hypothesis which reads as follow” It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant differences between the achievements of Experimental group and control group”. Thirty learners are selected to be the sample of present study.Mann-Whitney Test for two independent samples is used to analysis the results. The analysis shows that experimental group’s members who are taught according to problem based learning gets higher scores than the control group’s members who are taught according to traditional method. This
... Show MoreThe present study discusses the problem based learning in Iraqi classroom. This method aims to involve all learners in collaborative activities and it is learner-centered method. To fulfill the aims and verify the hypothesis which reads as follow” It is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant differences between the achievements of Experimental group and control group”. Thirty learners are selected to be the sample of present study.Mann-Whitney Test for two independent samples is used to analysis the results. The analysis shows that experimental group’s members who are taught according to problem based learning gets higher scores than the control group’s members who are taught according to traditional method. This
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