IDIOMS for ESL Students

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Deep water

To be in deep water is to be in serious trouble or difficulty.

“The loss of some very important papers put the secretary in deep water.”

Dear John letter

This is a letter written by a partner explaining why he/she is ending the relationship.

“He received the Dear John letter when he was on vacation.”

Dead to the world

If somebody's fast asleep or completely unaware of what is happening around them, he or she is said to be dead to the world.

“I didn’t hear you when you came in. I’m dead to the world when I’m reading the papers.”

Today was supposed to be first day of school but it rained continuously in the last 48 hours and the streets of Metro Manila got flooded (knee-deep in some areas) so classes on all levels were suspended for today and, hopefully, until tomorrow. Today I'm supposed to handle the subjects Natural Resources and Environmental Laws (1-4pm) and Sales (5-7pm); and tomorrow, Negotiable Instruments Law (9am-12nn). My students must be deeply disappointed!!!

Dead man walking

A dead man walking is someone who is in great trouble and will certainly get punished, lose his job or position, etc, soon.

”Evidence against him is overwhelming. He is a dead man walking.”

Darken someone's door

To darken a door is to visit someone or somewhere.

“I did not darken my grandfather’s door ‘til I was six.”

Cut out the dead wood

To cut out the deadwood is to remove unproductive people from a job.

“The present economic crisis requires that we cut out the deadwood to save on expenses.”

Foreword

An idiom (id-ee-uhm) is an expression composed of a word or a combination of words which, when taken together as a single unit, has a meaning that is different from the standard definition of the individual words. It has a fixed grammatical structure and a specialized or figurative meaning that develop from common usage by a particular people in a particular region, culture or era. Although idioms take root and flourish in a local setting, many of them acquire universal use and gain international acceptance.

When taken literally, idioms convey an idea that is very different from their specialized meaning. For example, the expression a tough cookie conjures an image that it totally different from its figurative meaning, which is a strong and self-confident person who doesn’t yield easily to pressure. Some idioms, when taken literally, are reduced to a heap of words that don’t seem to make sense. Examples of this are the expressions all ears, a square peg in a round hole, train of thought, and many more. For this reason, idioms cannot be directly translated to although they may have figurative equivalent in other languages.

Native speakers take them for granted and use them in their spoken and written communication at home, in the workplace, or in the community, but students learning English as a second or foreign language find idioms difficult to comprehend. This is understandable because an ESL or EFL student analyzing an idiom for the first time would try to deduce its meaning from the literal definition of its parts. Expectedly, this method will give him the literal translation but not its figurative meaning. If he stops with the literal translation the process will result only in confusion. But with proper tutorial he should discover its figurative meaning and, with constant use, successfully complete the assimilation process.

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