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Teaching idioms
Idioms appear in every language and their meaning is often confusing. Because the meaning of the whole group of words taken together has little to do with the meanings of the words taken one by one. In order to understand a language, one must know what idioms in that language mean. If we want to figure out the meaning of an idiom literally, word by word, we will get befuddled as we have to know its “hidden meaning”.
Most of the idioms do not coincide with their direct meanings but hundreds of years ago they actually did. If we search into the origin of the idioms, we can obtain a great deal of information about that nation’s culture, history and even policy. Idioms come from different sources, from the Bible to horse racing, from ancient fables to modern slang. Sometimes famous authors such as Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, or William Shakespeare made them up to add spark to their writings. Some idioms came from Native-American customs and others from African-American speech. Several popular idioms began as folksy sayings used in particular regions of the country and spoken in local dialects. However, the name of the first author or speaker who used particular expressions is not often obvious.
Level:intermediate
Age: 14-17
Downloads:16 |
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Copyright 28/6/2010 Guli
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