The Paper Tiger is at Large

Step 1: You will divide the work . Each British researcher will have two of you to work with him. you two will visit the site ( www.phrases.org.UK) to navigate the it and see all the categories under which the British idioms are listed. What is expected to help you is the information provided as a necessary background to understanding the phrase or idiom.  The information is about the story  or the origin of a certain idiom. Once you have read  such a story you are expected to find the equivalent to it when translated into Arabic. This is because it is the culture of the British which produced that idiom; the experiences British people gone through which gave form to this or that idiom. Being an Iraqi student from Baghdad , you probably can find the equivalent  which was produced by the Iraqi culture.

Sep 2: The other two of you will cooperate to translate the chosen  idioms into Arabic , but you pick the informal – local Iraqi Arabic equivalent- to them as the British researchers are doing their research on the Baghdadi dialect. At this stage the four of you may cooperate to do the translation. Your teacher will be also ready for consultation at certain point.

Step 3: The four of you will cooperate to translate to the British researchers a number of Iraqi examples of the Baghdad expressions chosen also by you from a three volume book by the Iraqi writer  Jalal  Al-Hanafi under the title :Dictionary of the Baghdadi Expressions( this volume is out of print, but I can lend you mine to work on). The other book which should be good for you is A Collection of Baghdadi Proverbs by the same writer.  This book is available at Al-Muttenebi Street (it’s a reprint). The two British researchers  know Arabic but their spoken is not that fluent. However, they can understand you when discussing   what  you picked up and  tsransleted. The four  of you will take part in the discussion. But one will be assigned to take note in the meanwhile.

When you have finished your job with them its highly likely that they will ask you for reference books or sites on the net for further information. You can refer   them to the books taken from website:  www.Proz.com/forum/Arabic.

Also you can refer them to two useful books by Yasin M. Al-Khalisi pulished y eoe own Uniesiy Pess:

·         Iraqi  Phrasebook  (The complete Language Guide of contemporary Iraqi Arabic)

·         Modern Iraqi  Arab