A.
What
is an idiom?
So far, in this lesson we’ve been
examining collocation between words, how words have a tendency to be used with
other words in a given language. Generally, this usage is fairly flexible in
form. For the collocation to “pay a bill” we can create such phrases as “will
pay the bill”, “the bill has been paid”, “the payment of the bill”, “bill pay”,
etc. and still maintain the meaning. At this point we will turn our attention
to idioms and fixed expressions, both of which are generally characterized by
rigidity in patterning. In other words, the parts of speech cannot be changed
(from verb to noun for example) and the word order must remain the same.
An idiom is
a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the
dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms hard for
ESL students and learners to understand.
An idiom is an
expression with at least two words which cannot be understood literally, and
for which the meaning is based on the whole rather than on the individual words
in it. Some examples of idioms in Spanish and English are darporsentado
which means to take for granted and estar al tanto which
means to be up to date. Spanish and English both have idioms to
express many of the same messages, though this is not always the case.
Idiomatic expressions are strongly cultural and have different meanings derived
from the cultures they come from. In translation, it is essential to identify
idioms in the source language and to transfer the meaning into the target
language, either by using an equivalent idiom or by paraphrasing the meaning.
Here are some more common idioms:
The teacher told us to get a move on. (= hurry; be quick)
My wife and I
take it in turns to cook. (= I cook one day, she cooks the next, etc.)
I don’t know the answer off-hand. (= without looking it up or asking someone)
It’s not far. We can take a short cut (= a quick way) through the park
I’m not very good at small talk. (= social talk; not about serious things)
I’m sorry I can’t make it (= come) on Friday
I asked her to keep
an eye on (= watch / look after) my suitcase while I went to the toilet.
Here are Example of idioms and its use in a
sentence:
Number
|
Examples
Idiom
|
Example
Sentences Idiom
|
1.
|
All the
better
(malah
lebih baik)
|
It is all
the better if you want to help me now.
(Ini malah
lebih baik jika kamu ingin menolong saya sekarang.)
|
2.
|
All over
(semua
telah selesai)
|
There is nothing we can do now because it is all over.
(Tidak ada
yang dapat kami lakukan sekarang karena semuanya telah selesai.)
|
3.
|
As if
(seolah-olah)
|
The baby
laughed as if she understood what her mother said.
(Bayi itu
tertawa seolah-olah dia mengerti apa yang ibunya katakan.)
|
4.
|
Off duty
(bebas
tugas, sedang libur)
|
I will off
duty for two days next week.
(Saya akan
libur selama dua hari pada minggu yang akan datang.)
|
5.
|
Out of
order
(rusak,
tidak dapat dipakai lagi)
|
You can’t
use this computer because it is out of order.
(Kamu
tidak dapat memakai komputer ini karena rusak.)
|
6.
|
By the way
(omong-omong)
|
By the way, do you
know Mr. Bahri?
(omong-omong,
apakah kamu tahu Bapak Bahri?)
|
7.
|
Go on
(meneruskan,
terus-menerus)
|
How can
they go on like that?
(Bagaimana
mereka dapat meneruskan seperti itu?)
|
8.
|
In general
(pada
umumnya)
|
Woman in
general like shopping.
(Wanita
pada umumnya suka berbelanja.)
|
9.
|
Go around
(berkeliling)
|
Everyday I
go
around Jakarta to find you.
(Setiap
hari saya berkeliling Jakarta untuk menemukanmu.)
|
10.
|
In and out
(sering
datang dan pergi)
|
Mr.
Pramono is a business man, so he is always in and out,
(Bapak
Pramono adalah seorang pebisnis, sehingga dia selalu sering datang dan
pergi.)
|
B. Fixed expressions
To children, non-native English speakers, and anyone who
confronts a fixed expression for the first time, they can be
baffling. A fixed expression is a little like a secret code that
allows access to a club that not everyone can enter. It’s a phrase that has a
very specific meaning that can’t be expressed any other way and also can’t be
deduced just by considering the sum of its parts.
Some fixed expressions, like “ready, aim, fire” are used so often
that the opportunity to turn them into a joke creates
another fixed expression. Others, such as “before you know it” or “to
tell you the truth” have been around for so long that they function almost as a
single word.
Unlike
idioms, fixed expressions typically offer neither folk wisdom
nor an image. “Two heads are better than one” creates a bizarre, yet effective,
visual idea of one body that operates with two heads, while the idiom’s meaning
is that two people working on a problem have a better chance of solving it than
just a single thinker. Fixed expressions are more often a
collection of words with individual meaning that really have nothing to do with
one another.
“All of a sudden” is a perfect example. “All” means a
totality, a location or moment in time in which everything is included. “Of a”
is really just a grammatical phrase with no internal meaning of its own.
“Sudden” refers to something completely unexpected; it is only the final word
in this expression that contributes meaning to the fixed expression,
which is simply another way of saying “suddenly.”
Fixed expressions, as the name
indicates, are also usually fixed and not flexible in patterning. They are
however, unlike idioms, generally transparent in meaning. Some examples of
fixed expressions are de hecho - in fact/ as a matter of fact, a
pesar de - in spite of, and a quiencorresponda - to whom it may
concern.
In order to translate idioms and fixed and expressions
well, the translator first needs to be able to recognize them in the source
language, then decipher the meaning (if it is an unfamiliar expression), and
finally to identify a similar idiom or fixed expression in the target language.
In these cases, it is especially important to abandon any attempt to translate
literally word-for-word from source text and rather to focus on translating the
message in a way that is natural in the TL.
For examples:
a. What
was wrong with the hotel?
b. Well,
for a start it was next to a
motorway and very noisy. And to make
matters worse there were factories on the other side of the road, which
stayed open 24 hours a day.
C. Using
Idioms
Idioms are important but they can be difficult to
use correctly.
- With many idioms, if
you make just a small mistake, it can sound strange, funny, or badly wrong. For
example: get a move; a small talk; put an eye on, off-hands, etc;
-
Idioms often have
special features: they may be informal or funny or ironic; they may only be
used by certain people (e.g. young children, or teenagers, or elderly people);
they may only appear in limited contexts; they may have special grammar. For
these reasons, you can often ‘learn’ the meaning of an idiom but then use it
incorrectly. For example: after her husband died she was down in the dumps.
(This idiom means ‘sad and depressed’ but is completely wrong here: the
situation is too serious and the idiom is too informal.)
- It is essentially a literary idiom, based in the main upon the language of intercourse of the
cultivated Roman society of the day.
- Though the vocabulary is Greek the idiom is frequently Hebraic and foreign to the genius of the Greek
language.
- Though many of them have adopted Arabic a Berber idiom is commonly spoken.
- A reading may be impugned on a number of grounds: that it
gives no sense or an inappropriate sense, that it involves a usage or an idiom not current at the assumed time
of writing, or foreign to the reputed author, or to the style in which he then
was writing, that it involves some metrical or rhythmical anomaly, or that the
connection of thought which it produces is incoherent or disorderly.
- In a great number of Babylonian inscriptions an idiom has long been recognized which
is clearly not ordinary Semitic in character.
- In it were written most of the penitential hymns, which were
possibly thought to require a more euphonious idiom than, for example, hymns of praise.
- These invaders, according to this latter view, adopted the
religion and culture of the conquered Sumerians; and, consequently, the
Sumerian idiom at a
comparatively early date began to be used exclusively in the Semitic temples as
the written vehicles of religious thought in much the same way as was the
medieval Latin of the Roman Church.
- He maintains that " the Greek of the New Testament may
never be understood as classical Greek is understood," and accuses the
revisers of distorting the meaning " by translating in accordance with
Attic idiom phrases that convey
in later Greek a wholly different sense, the sense which the earlier
translators in happy ignorance had recognized that the context demanded."
- His natural idiom
in short was that of a heightened and ennobled folk-song, and one of the most
remarkable evidences of his genius was the power with which he adapted all his
perfection and symmetry of style to the requirements of popular speech.
- In all these his work belongs mainly to the style and idiom of a bygone generation: they are
monuments, not landmarks, and their beauty and invention seem rather to close
an epoch than to inaugurate its successor.
- At a minimum they may need to be translated into the local
language or dialect, or the wording changed to include local idioms.
- It imposes the constraint that there just be one pipeline of
modules - each collaborator must follow the same visualization idiom.
- Moreover, the rules that translate idioms or which replace them by single lexical items may have to
be rather complex.
- She improves in idiom,
although she still omits articles and uses the "did" construction for
the simple past.
- When Miss Keller examines a statue, she says in her natural idiom, as her fingers run over the
marble, "It looks like a head of Flora."
- Generally speaking, from various circumstances, and
especially that of the reconquest, by which the already-formed idiom of the Christian conquerors and
colonists was gradually conveyed from north to south, Castilian has maintained
a uniformity of which the Romance languages afford no other example.
- The idiom of
ordinary life and social intercourse and the more fervid and elevated diction
of oratorical prose had made great progress, but the language of imagination
and poetical feeling was, if vivid and impressive in isolated expressions,
still incapable of being wrought into consecutive passages of artistic
composition.
- In these instances, however, we can explain the difficulty
away by applying that great fundamental principle followed by the Semitic
priests and scribes who played with and on the Sumerian idiom, and in the course of many centuries turned what was
originally an agglutinate language into what has almost justified Halevy and
his followers in calling Sumerian a cryptography.
- New settings of use, idiom
and construction continually surprise us, and, in spite of occasional
harshness, secure for his style an unusual freshness and freedom.
- The translation, as a whole, is good, and adheres very
closely to the Hebrew text, which has not been without its influence on the
Aramaic idiom; at times,
especially in the poetical passages, a freer and more paraphrastic method is
employed, and the version shows evident traces of Halakhic and Haggadic
expansion.
- Cambodian idiom
bears a likeness to some of the aboriginal dialects of south Indo-China; it is
agglutinate in character and rich in vowel-sounds.
- This etymological study of Sumerian is attended with
incalculable difficulties, because nearly all the Sumerian texts which we
possess are written in an idiom
which is quite evidently under the influence of Semitic. With the exception of
some very ancient texts, the Sumerian literature, consisting largely of
religious material such as hymns and incantations, shows a number of Semitic
loanwords and grammatical Semitics, and in many cases, although not always, is
quite patently a translation of Semitic ideas by Semitic priests into the
formal religious Sumerian language.
- Irksome as were his employments, grievous as was the waste
of time, uncongenial as were his companions, solid benefits were to be set off
against these things; his health became robust, his knowledge of the world was
enlarged, he wore off some of his foreign idiom, got rid of much of his reserve; he adds - and perhaps in
his estimate it was the benefit to be most prized of all - " the
discipline and evolution of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the
phalanx and the legion, and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader
may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman empire."
B. Easy
idioms to use
Some idiomatic expressions are used on their own, or
with just one or two other words. These are often the easiest to use.
1. A:
Are you coming?
B: Yes, hang
on. (=wait)
2. A:
What’s up? (=what’s the matter?)
B: Nothing
3. A:
I’m really sorry but I’ve forgotten to bring the book you lent me.
B: That’s OK. Never
mind. (= it’s OK, don’t worry; it’s not important)
4. A:
Can I borrow your dictionary/
B: Sure, go
ahead. (= help yourself; take it; do it)
5. A:
I don’t know which one to choose.
B: Well, make
up your mind. (= make a decision)
REFERENCES
English
Vocabulary in Use (pre-intermediate & intermediate)
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