The students will relate to the subject being learned through the book's usage of common Hong Kong cultural references.

Idioms are expressions that cannot be translated word for word into another language. The word idiom comes from the Greek root “idio”—which means unique signature.

Idioms do not make sense if you translate each word individually. The words in an idiom must be understood as a whole. Because you cannot understand idioms by translating each word, they do not translate well from language to language.

Many idioms come from slang that has, through repeated use over time, become acceptable to use.

Learning English language idioms is important. It improves reading comprehension, and the use of idioms in English writing helps make the writing more interesting and descriptive. The English idioms featured in this book are some of the most common idioms used by English speaking people.

Audience: F.1 through F.6

What’s in this book

This book is divided into three parts: definitions, exercises, and answers. The first part explains what each idiom means, how it is used, and how it originated.

The second part of the book provides exercises that will help learn the idioms.

The third part of the book provides answers to the questions in the exercises. At the end of the book is an alphabetical listing of idioms with their page numbers.