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Idioms | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5234 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 25 of 31 05 May 2014 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Some do, but is there any reason to think they go out of date faster than the rest of vocabulary? An idiom like "break a leg" I imagine has a long pedigree. As to when to learn idioms, treat them as any other chunk of vocabulary, which is really all they are. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| yantai_scot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4808 days ago 157 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 26 of 31 05 May 2014 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Apologies for the wording of the original question. I don't have a background in even
basic linguistics beyond school grammar so I wasn't as precise in asking as I should have been. I need to get my hands on a basic textbook on the subject. I'm going to take the comment about toki pona and run with it. The other comment about the Star Trek TNG episode- I remember it and yes, I guess I was wondering if there were any languages that were the complete opposite. I didn't/don't know if it's even possible, the way humans use and shape language. Just a question that popped into my head. Lastly, I must second the 'Is that a Fish in Your Ear' book by David Bellos. It's a brilliant read in itself. I have the 'Through the Looking Glass', by Guy Deutscher but I haven't been able to get into it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5326 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 27 of 31 05 May 2014 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Of course, it doesn't makes sense to force-feed idioms to language learners that are not likely to understand them. My comments were primarily directed at teachers and textbook authors.
IMHO, many of them do. I've seen many German idiom books that were already partially outdated by the time they were published.
IMHO, they're much more than just chunks of vocabulary; they're often vocabulary items with built-in usage examples. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5234 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 28 of 31 05 May 2014 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Sure, and I don't say "groovy" or "bogart," though Dad probably did. I'm asking if idioms go out of date faster than the rest of the non-idiomatic lexicon. There's lots of words, simple words, quite popular in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, that are similarly outdated.
I meant each idiom is, essentially, a single vocabulary item. "By dint of" need be learned as a unit, just like you'd learn "rabbit" or "although." Or "groovy." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 29 of 31 06 May 2014 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Instant earworm. Doitsujin, I don't trust textbooks on idioms. I've seen too many occasions where idioms were translated to German idioms that were very close in meaning, but that I would never use if even as a joke. I don't mind understanding weird outdated words and idioms, but textbook vocabulary is usually presented as vocabulary that you are supposed to memorize and learn to use actively. ScottScheule, I think that idioms are similar to other kinds of lexical items, but not the same: to me it seems much easier to change parts of an idiom than to coin a new word. Like, instead of "Für ihn würde ich die Hand ins Feuer legen!" one might say "Für den würd' ich nicht mal den kleinen Finger ins Feuer legen!" (I'd put my hand in the fire for him/I wouldn't even put my pinky in the fire for him) Edited by Bao on 07 May 2014 at 9:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4915 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 30 of 31 07 May 2014 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This is pretty groovey:
Scaterd Few song, Groovey Yeah, I still use the word groovey, in reference to music. Especially the current wave of retro psychedelic music in the UK. Like this new(ish) band: Temples - Shelter Song That I would say is "groovey as s**t". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4674 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 31 of 31 07 May 2014 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There are no good books on modern Brazilian Portuguese idioms,
idioms are scattered across general dictionaries, and ''dicionários de frases feitas'' are hard to find, there are two or three of them, and they follow the mantra ''let's include all idioms we can find, from the year 1500 up to now, sociolinguistically these idiom dictionaries are poorly organized, stylistic and even regional/geographical usage is not properly marked. Most Brazilians have not heard these idioms, since they're well outdated (if not archaic). On the other hand, I have a really nice book on modern idioms of Argentine Spanish: 
A good idiom dictionary: you open it, learn an idiom, use it with native speakers, get praised. A bad idiom dictionary: you open it, learn an idiom, use it with native speakers, get strange looks because this idiom is no longer used. Edited by Medulin on 07 May 2014 at 8:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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