Idioms in chunks

Have you discovered our growing "Idiom of the Week" archive yet? Subscribe to Spotlight Online's free e-mail newsletter and you'll get a fresh, colourful idiom, explained and translated, every Tuesday.

Each language has its own images connected to idioms. In English, for instance, when you talk about missing an opportunity, you say you missed the boat rather than the connecting train, as you would in German. The images can also be quite drastic. Last week's idiom, for example, was "in the flesh"; it's used to talk about seeing someone face-to-face or in person, instead of in a picture and instead of corresponding by e-mail or talking on the phone. We say we are only flesh and blood to express that we have faults and feelings, and we call our children our own flesh and blood. We also flesh something out when we add details where before we only had outlines, to bring that something to life. It helps to visualize such images to anchor them firmly in your memory.

Even when the images are memorable, the devil is in the details. Idioms can't be modified, so you need to get the grammar just right. Compare:

• see/meet someone in the flesh
• see/meet someone in person
• see/meet someone face-to-face

So come and flesh out your idiomatic knowledge in this week's exercise: Scroll through the idioms archive and say each phrase to yourself out loud as a chunk, visualize the image, use it in a context you can relate to, and then take our test to see how many idioms you can remember. Good luck!

Anne Hodgson