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Tag: English idioms

More sailing idioms

Written by Hugh Dellar on . Posted in Chunk of the day, Chunks, Lexis. 2 Comments on More sailing idioms

This is the second in a short series of posts looking at sailing idioms and idioms connected to the UK’s long history as a maritime nation. It’s a reflection of the way in which our 8000-mile coastline has shaped the language and the way we process the world – and by the way, you can read the first post here, if you missed it. Today, I’ll explain the literal meanings of some boat-related words and then look at these link to our sailing idioms and phrases. All aboard! Sailing Idioms on deck The deck of a boat is the flat area you can walk on that’s built...

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Word-for-word translation: an activity with possibilities

Written by Andrew Walkley on . Posted in Chunks, Core Principles, Revision. No Comments on Word-for-word translation: an activity with possibilities

Generally speaking, teachers discourage word-for-word translation from a students own language into the language they are learning. Sometimes they discourage it for the wrong reason – that translation or the use of L1 is just wrong. Sometimes teachers discourage it because they know it’ll end up in gobbledygook and they teach students that the correct approach is to translate whole phrases or collocations. On the whole, I agree with this second view. If students are looking up an unknown word from L2 text on Goggle translate (or similar), then it’s generally a good idea to include other...

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Boat Idioms

Written by Hugh Dellar on . Posted in Chunk of the day, Chunks, Lexis. 5 Comments on Boat Idioms

There are a lot of boat idioms in English perhaps as a result of the history and geography of UK itself. The United Kingdom has almost 8000 miles of coastline and a long history as a seafaring nation, so it’s no surprise that many words and phrases that were originally used on boats and at sea have found their way into our everyday vocabulary. Last year, I wrote a post about the ways that we use water metaphors to talk about the movement of people and so here’s the first of what will be several posts exploring some of the intermediate and advanced sailing and nautical idioms. Let’s get...

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