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.
Electronic learning was used as a substitute method for learning during the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct scientific materials and perform student assessment; this study aimed to investigate academic staff opinions toward electronic education. A cross-sectional study with a web-based questionnaire distributed to academic staff in different medical colleges in Iraq. After de-identification, data were collected and analyzed with statistical software to determine the significance between variables. A total of 256 participants were enrolled in the study: 83% were not satisfied or neutral to online learning, 80% showed a poor benefit from delivery of the practical electronic knowledge and 25% for theoretical sessions with a significant difference
... Show MoreThe study aimed to prepare quick response codes to learn some of the technical skills of the second graders in the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences. The experimental method was used in the design of the experimental and control experimental and control groups. The research sample was represented by second-graders in the College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences / University of Baghdad, and by lot, the second division (a) was chosen to represent the experimental group that applied the inverse method using the QR code, and the second division (g) to represent the control group and applied the traditional method. (10) Students per group. After the tribal tests, his main experiment was carried out for 10 weeks with one
... Show MoreThe consumption of dried bananas has increased because they contain essential nutrients. In order to preserve bananas for a longer period, a drying process is carried out, which makes them a light snack that does not spoil quickly. On the other hand, machine learning algorithms can be used to predict the sweetness of dried bananas. The article aimed to study the effect of different drying times (6, 8, and 10 hours) using an air dryer on some physical and chemical characteristics of bananas, including CIE-L*a*b, water content, carbohydrates, and sweetness. Also predicting the sweetness of dried bananas based on the CIE-L*a*b ratios using machine learn- ing algorithms RF, SVM, LDA, KNN, and CART. The results showed that increasing the drying
... Show MoreIn the analysis of multiple linear regression, the problem of multicollinearity and auto-correlation drew the attention of many researchers, and given the appearance of these two problems together and their bad effect on the estimation, some of the researchers found new methods to address these two problems together at the same time. In this research a comparison for the performance of the Principal Components Two Parameter estimator (PCTP) and The (r-k) class estimator and the r-(k,d) class estimator by conducting a simulation study and through the results and under the mean square error (MSE) criterion to find the best way to address the two problems together. The results showed that the r-(k,d) class estimator is the best esti
... Show MoreThe erythrocyte aggregation is an important physiological phenomenon in the circulation of blood. It is a basic characteristic of normal blood that plays a major role in the cardiovascular system, especially in the microcirculation. This study explained the kinetics of single cells rouleaux formation one- dimensional aggregate and three- dimensional aggregate, during simultaneous, and the effect of hematocrit on the process of aggregation and sedimentation. The present study was done on forty one healthy subjects. Laser light is passed through a well mixed sample of blood and the forward scattered light intensities recorded continuously. The samples were prepared with different hematocrit, (10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%). Increasing
... Show MoreThe methods used by the print media (press) is varied in conveying its messages and its orientations to the readers. But language takes the leading method among these methods, or a real competitor - so far - due to the characteristics and advantages of languages, including: ease, abbreviation, and development, etc.
In the midst of such events, political tensions, and what they carry of the global developments, and among which was the most important the fall of the former Iraqi regime in the spring of 2003, the press had the greatest share, and a large portion on the level of monitoring, analyzing, and interpreting the various consequences of the event. The interpreting of the news varies according to the evolving political trends
... Show MoreAbstract  
... Show MoreIn our time, not too long ago, the universities of the world have been fast to take care of the study of an innovative type of technical and human studies, called the science of "comparative literature". Comparative research studies have grown and flourished rapidly in response to the demands of both mental and artistic life. This shows the increasing awareness at both the modern national and the international levels in order to develop through connecting with the international intellectual, nental and artistic currents to nurture ethics and originality. Comparative studies show that the beginning of the comparative literature goes back to the time when the Latin literature was connected to the Greek literature and th
... Show MoreASTRACT
The current study aimed to identify the quality of health services provided by the Omani health sector through the comparison between public and private hospitals in Dhofar Governorate, Oman. A questionnaire has been developed to collect data from 360 patients who received health services in one public Hospital (Sultan Qaboos) and three private Hospitals (Badr Al-Sama, Lifeline, and Al-Hakeeim). The data were analyzed using independent samples T-Test and One Way ANOVA. The results of the study showed that the quality levels of health services offered in private hospitals were better than public hospitals. The study results also reveled that there are significant differences between public hospitals and private hos
... Show More