The syntactic and sematic features of english expressions containing the verb “take” and “bring” and their vietnamese equivalents

THESIS THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERB “TAKE” AND “BRING” AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERB “TAKE” AND “BRING” AND THEIR

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC DIỄN ĐẠT TIẾNG ANH CÓ CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ ‘TAKE’ VÀ ‘BRING’ TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

LE THI SOAN DUONG

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2018

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

OF ENGLISH EXPRESSION CONTAINING THE VERB “TAKE” AND “BRING” AND THEIR

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CỤM THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CÓ CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ ‘TAKE’ VÀ

‘BRING’ TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

LE THI SOAN DUONG Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr.Pham Thi Tuyet Huong

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Hanoi, 2018

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled Syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs

“Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2018

Le Thi Soan Duong

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Pham Thi Tuyet Huong

Date: …./04/2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people I would like to express my deeply thanks to my supervisor, Dr Pham Thi Tuyet Huong, who step by step guides me during my writing thesis Without her assistance, excellent suggestions and detailed critical comments, the work could not have been completed I own her a debt of gratitude that cannot be measured

In addition, I am greatly indebted to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, supports, encouragement and for inspiring me the love for English foreign language teaching and doing scientific research

Besides, the study could not have been prepared without the support and provision of useful materials from all my colleagues and friends Therefore, their kindness will never be forgotten

I would also give my deepest gratitude to my family for their constant support and encouragement during the time I was attending the course and while the work was in progress

Finally, although great efforts have been made to complete the thesis I am aware that this study is far from perfect Hence, constructive comments are welcome for more perfection of the thesis

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ABSTRACT

The title of my thesis is Syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents The purpose of my study is to describe the syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring”, show some similarities and

differences between English expressions containing the verb “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features, and propose the implications for teaching and learning these English expressions at high school

To carry out this research, I use descriptive, analytical and contrastive methods The author combines descriptive research method and comparative analysis method, in which survey questionnaires, the comparative method, the statistic method and the analytical method are included Being the result of survey, the author has pointed out the similarities and differences of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” Hopefully, the finding of this study can, to some extent,

be suggested as a referential material for Vietnamese students and teachers in studying and teaching expressions

NP Noun Phrase

PP Preposition Smb Somebody Sth Something

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 A summary of the Sematic Features of expressions containing the verb

“Take” 29Table 2 A summary of the Sematic Features of expressions containing the verb

“Bring” 34Table 3: Percentages of functions of English expressions containing “Take” and

“Bring” and Vietnamese expressions containing “Mang đi” and “Mang đến” 36Figure 1: The necessity of learning English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and English expressions 41Figure 2: Students’ difficulties when learning English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and English expressions 42

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi

ABSTRACT vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ix

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Design of the study 5

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Review of Previous Studies 6

2.2 Review of Theoretical Background 6

2.2.1 Theoretical Framework 7

2.2.1.1 Syntax 7

2.2.1.2 Semantics 11

2.2.2 Theoretical Background 12

2.2.2.1 Concepts of expression 12

2.2.2.2 Concepts of set expressions 12

2.2.2.3 Types of set expressions 13

2.2.3 The verbs “take” and “bring” in English 16

2.2.4 The verbs “Take” and “Bring” in Vietnamese 17

2.3 Summary 18

Chapter 3: THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERBS “TAKE” AND “BRING” AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 19

3.1 Syntactic features of english expressions containing the verbs “take” and “bring” 19

3.1.1 Syntactic Features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” 19

3.1.2 Syntactic Features of English expressions containing the verb “Bring” 22

3.2 Semantics features of expressions containing the verb “Take” and “Bring” 24

3.2.1 Semantic features of expressions containing the verb “Take” 24

3.2.2 Semantic features of expressions containing the verb “Bring” 31

3.3 Similarities and differences between english expressions containing the verbs “take” and “bring” and their vietnamese equivalents 35

3.3.1 In terms of syntactic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” 35

3.3.1.1 Similarities 35

3.3.1.2 Differences 36

3.3.2 In terms of semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” 37

3.3.2.1 Similarities 37

3.3.1.2 Differences 37

3.4 Summary 38

CHAPTER IV: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERBS “TAKE” AND “BRING" AND ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS FOR THE FRESHMAN IN UNIVERSITY OF FIRE FIGHTING AND PREVENTION 39

4.1 Survey questionnaires 39

4.1.1 Subjects 39

4.1.2 Questionnaires 39

4.1.3 Procedure 40

4.2 Difficulties of the freshmen in University of Fire Fighting and Prevention in learning English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and English expressions 41

4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning English expressions of education 42

4.3.1 Suggestions for learning English expressions of education 42

4.3.2 Suggestions for teaching English expressions of education 43

4.4 Summary of the chapter 45

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 47

5.1 Recapitulation 47

5.2 Concluding remarks 47

5.3 Limitation of the study 47

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 48

REFERENCES 49

APPENDICES 51

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

There are thousands of languages amended and used in the world, each of them has differences and uniqueness; among which English can be seen as one of the international languages to serve people’s daily-life communication In fact, English has been recommended to be a compulsory subject in training curriculum of every school and university in Vietnam

Plenty of Vietnamese children may get accustomed to spoken English as soon as they begin learning how to read and write in their mother tongue This means that people have recognized the importance and necessity of English as well

as the advantages that English may bring about However, learning English is always a big challenge for Vietnamese native-speaker learners One of the challenging things of acquiring English is expressions, which seem to be too hard for them to master, hence inevitable errors in using expressions in communication: both spoken and written English

Expressions are considered interesting and popular phenomena of almost all languages They show the way people perceive and react to the world they inhabit Being able to master expression is almost essential if we want our English to sound more native-like and less awkward Mastering those expressions will also help better understand native English speakers

The verbs “Take” and “Bring” have some basic meanings However, they have a wide range of meanings They can combine with other word-classes to form lexico-grammatical structures where by various manifestation of meaning could be expressed With such a complexity of meaning conveyed, and flexibility in combination with other units to shape different meanings, there is no doubt that the verbs “Take” and “Bring” can cause confusion among language users in understanding their various implicated meanings, and at the same time creating problems in using them properly in various contexts

Being aware of the importance of expressions in daily interaction as well as

in learning language, many researchers have made efforts to study issues and aspects in this field Many researchers have concentrated on analyzing semantic and cultural features, as well as psychological factors of expressions Nevertheless, a study on English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” has not been dealt with so far In Vietnam, research of these expressions is still untouched

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especially the syntactic and semantic features of expressions containing the verbs

“Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents What is more, there are many problems which need being examined when one attempts to show the meaning conveys as well as the linguistic functions of expressions containing these verbs

For the above reasons, I decided to choose the thesis entitled “The syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and

“Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents.”

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims

This research is conducted to achieve the targets of finding out syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring”

and their Vietnamese equivalents Here, the syntactic and semantic manifestations

of these verbs are taken into account The study hopes to contribute to enhanced English language learning in general and to better English communicative competence by Vietnamese learners of English in particular

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3 What are difficulties students often encounter when learning expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and possible solutions in teaching and learning English expression containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring”?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to deal with the subject effectively, a flexible combination of methods is employed First, the descriptive method is utilized to give a deep and detailed description of English expression containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents Then examples for illustrating the description will be taken from the grammar and reference books written by contemporary influential linguists in English as well as from translated publications available in Vietnam

Survey questionnaire in form of a written test is used as one of data collection methods to evaluate participants’ ability in understanding English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” in terms of syntactic and semantic features Then, the statistic method is applied to present quantitative descriptions in a manageable form to simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way

In addition, comparison method is used to analyze English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents, hence pointing out the distinctive features of English expression containing the verbs

“Take” and “Bring” which cause difficulties for Vietnamese learners and suggesting some implications for teaching these verbs to learners

1.5 Scope of the study

There are many different types of expressions in English, but here are the main ones: Expressions (or idiomatic expressions), Slang, Phrasal Verbs, Proverbs, Clichés and Jargons Set expression includes fixed phrases, sentences, proverbs and expressions which contain the verbs “Take” and “Bring” in both languages: English and Vietnamese But in this study, we focus on the set expressions that contain phrasal verbs

Academic Scope

The study focuses on studying syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents The result of the study will give crucial contributions to the field of linguistics and improve the efficiency of teaching English expressions containing

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the verbs “Take” and “Bring” for non-English majored students at the University of Fire Fighting and Prevention The findings hopefully would bring out various suggestions for teachers and researchers to conduct further studies related to English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” themselves and those of other verbs as well as advance teaching effectiveness of expressions Such approach definitely helps students efficiently expand their lexical items as students are exposed to a new look at how words are frequently used in reality, not purely words’ definitions without notes for practical ways of using them It is better if English expressions are analyzed and totalized, contributing considerably to English learning and teaching in Vietnam

1.6 Significance of the study

(i) Theoretical Significance

It is true that lexical aspect has been given little attention so far and teachers instead only pay attention to grammar or other aspects Thus, students are often not provided with full understandings towards English expressions of some certain words and only learn their definitions A frequent difficulty is that students might find some common expressions complicated because they have no idea while a combination of the word with another one is not approved In order to overcome such a trouble, the research is carried out in order to offer needed knowledge as to syntactic and semantic features of English expressions with the verbs “Take” and

“Bring” By providing an innovative approach to learning English lexical terms, the author expects to change how students learn English words as well as how teachers change their traditional methods of teaching vocabulary If words are separated from their specific contexts and are exposed to students only through their meanings in dictionaries, it is not easy for these 2nd language users to obtain the real meanings of the words in different cases

(ii) Practical Significance

The author hopes that this study’s findings and conclusions would bring great contributions to raise the importance of studying English expressions with the verbs “Take” and “Bring” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents First of all, when students study about expressions, they might learn them by heart easily, however, the main problem will lie in applications of these expressions in appropriate contexts Therefore, learning about expressions is the beginning of the whole process The main step is to understand comprehensively how they are

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applied in diverse situations and students can only do this by analyzing examples made by natives speakers, not their own This research offers them a method to do this Secondly, regarding translation, students will have problems with understand the meanings if they learn the words’ definitions separately with its expressions and meanings This study’s implications are to deal with these issues in hope that will help students overcome their troubles

1.7 Design of the study

The study consists of the 5 following parts:

Chapter I – Introduction: gives a brief overview of the research with the rationale for choosing the topic of the research, aims, objectives, scope of the research, and the structural organization of the thesis

Chapter II – Literature Review: reviews the previous studies related to the research topic, a variety of pragmatic concepts most relevant to the research topic such as expression, phrasal verb, etc and the framework, base on which the research

is conducted

Chapter III – Syntactic and semantic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents, shows what have been found and how they are analyzed The features are accompanied by statistical results and the analysis of the data shown in the tables The most importance in this chapter is the discussion of the data collection and analysis

Chapter IV – Some suggestions for teaching English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring" and English expressions for the freshman in University

of Fire Fighting and Prevention

Chapter V – Conclusion, provides a summary of the development of the study, a brief re-statement of the findings Also, the recapitulation, concluding remarks, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are cited here

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Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background as well as relevant knowledge and summaries of previous research’s findings and conclusion associated with the theme of the investigation In other words, the review is to explain several related terms and definitions as to semantics, syntax, semantics, collocation, verb and structures with the verbs “Take” and “Bring" These later would further highlight the features conducted of the study as well as suggest an array of possible implications for teaching English expressions with the verbs

“Take” and “Bring” in general and teaching them to Vietnamese students at the

University of Fire Fighting and Prevention in particular

2.1 Review of Previous Studies

Up to now, there have been a number of studies on different kinds of English and Vietnamese expressions, verbs and related subjects The descriptions and analyses are based on the starting point from Chomsky The other descriptions of syntactic and semantic views are through different ages in the history of linguistics

as Bullokar in “Brief Grammar for English” (1785).The description makes further progress to the view of Fowler in “English Grammar” (1857), then Sweet in “New English Grammar” (1891)

Palmer (1990) said that expressions are the consequences of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the words themselves Semantically, expressions are single units, but they are not single grammatical features and the problem of expressions involves the much wider issue of word formation, by which what would appear to be new and more complex lexemes can

be formed from single ones

Fellbaum (349) mentioned the traditional definition of expressions as “a class of multi-word units, which pose a challenge to our understanding of grammar and lexis that has not yet been fully met” Besides, he made the conception of expressions in his book more clearly by distinguishing idioms from collocations and

“dead” metaphor

Expressions have also been the subject of study, essay and research by many other linguists: Flavel (1994), Collins (1957), etc The interest in expressions cast back a perception of the universality of prefabricated- memorized combination in spoken and in written language Since 1990s, expressions have been studied in relation with their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions Linguists have

wrote “Từ vựng - Ngữ nghĩa Tiếng Việt” In this book, the author analyzed

Vietnamese expressions and showed their semantic and syntactic features Nguyễn

Lân collected a number of Vietnamese expressions in “ Từ điển thành ngữ, tục ngữ Việt Nam” (2005) Nguyễn Nhã Bản was best known with “Đặc trưng cấu trúc ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ, tục ngữ trong ca dao” (2005)

Besides, there have been some other papers which dealt with expressions related to animals, human body parts, numbers, spatial verbs, color, etc… These were done by Nguyễn Thị Hiệp (2001), Võ Thanh Quyên (2006)

Recently, there have been some research papers that have close relationship with the thesis such as: “A study of English set expressions containing numbers and the Vietnamese equivalents” by Nguyễn Thị Phương, Hanoi Open University (2015); “A study on idomatic expressions denoting 'happiness' in English and their

Vietnamese equivalents” by Nguyễn Minh Phương, Hanoi Open University

(2015), etc

However, the investigation into English expressions containing the verbs

“Take” and “Bring” has not been carried out yet Therefore, through the reading of those works in English and Vietnamese, I would like to make a systematic description and analysis of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and

“Bring” in terms of syntactic and semantic features A system of information about English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” together with my realization and analyses is just a small part in this field of linguistics Moreover, a study on English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” is still a deserted field that needs to be exploited to keep up with and fulfill the demands in teaching expressions for EFL students in Vietnam

2.2 Review of Theoretical Background

2.2.1 Theoretical Framework

2.2.1.1 Syntax

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The word syntax comes from Ancient Greek word In linguistics, syntax is a collection of rules, standards as well as methods which regulate the structure of sentences in a certain language, specifically order of words (Oxford University Press, 2014)

The word of syntax had been written long before modern grammar official fixed and appeared In old times, syntax concept was ruled by a structure name by grammaire générale which was discovered by Antoine Arnauld in “Grammaire Générale” in 1660 This framework states that human brain thinking processes will reflect straightly into language As a result “there is a single, most natural way to express a thought” (Antoine, 1660) That framework lasts until the 19th century which been replaced by the development of linguistics and by the argument of progressive linguists They recognize that it is not true about the state “there is a single, most natural way to express a thought” because of the impact of internal and external environment on human thinking And so the logic base for studying

language’s structure had been denied (Bickerton, 1992)

It only became clear when linguists discovered and adapt modern theories of syntax in the late 20th century The famous work “generative grammar” of professor Noam Chomsky is considered as the most popular framework to study and analyze about syntax with the main hypothesis that “language is a configuration of the human mind” and “syntax is based upon the component structure of sentences”, following the concept that syntax features certainly focus on the arrangement of a sentence more than its communication purposes (Chomsky, 2002)

Regarding how syntax is defined, it is clear that syntax is the study of structure of language In other words, its main targets are said to be the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language For this reason, the goal of many linguists is to discover the syntactic rules common

to all languages They are to dictate how words from different parts of speech are put together to convey a complete thought

It is also said that Syntax is a form of grammar and it is concerned primarily with word order in a sentence and with the agreement of words when they are used simultaneously It is also true that every language has developed a specific mechanism that is similar to syntax to bring a boundless number of sentences This

is a common feature that can be witnessed in all languages

A Verbs

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First of all, it is without a doubt that verb is the most vital part of a sentence

in English since without this type of word no complete sentences will be made Secondly, verb is a part of speech that in syntax conveys the meanings of an action,

an occurrence, or a state of being and there are various kinds of verbs Last but not least, a verb has to agree with sentence components such as subject or object, gender or number Therefore, verbs must have tenses, but it is too far upon the scale

of this section Regarding types of verbs, there are four different types in total:

Do you eat dog meat?

English Modal Verb is the third type of verb in the English language that expresses modality and often occupies only the initial position in a verb phrase

Some common modal verbs are can, may or must For example:

You must wear a helmet

English Main Verb is the fourth type to mention in this part Main verbs are dynamic or stative verbs that function as the head of the verb phrase All other verbs that are not auxiliary or modal verbs are main verbs in English For example:

He broke my arm

I killed the man yesterday

In summary, there are four types of verbs as listed in the table below:

parts, for example turn up means ‘appear’

Longman Dictionary of phrasal verbs defines phrasal verb as “idiomatic combination of a verb and adverb, or a verb and preposition (or verb with both adverb and preposition)” A grammarian such as Eduard, Vlad (1998) [Eduard,

V(1998).English Group Grammar Constanta: Tipografia : 93] describes phrasal verb as “combination of a lexical verb and adverbial particle” Verbs as ‘give up’,

‘fall out’ and ‘take in’ are considered by him to be multi-words verbs that are

equivalent to one lexical item Heaton considers that “phrasal verbs are compound verbs that results from combining a verb with an adverb or a preposition, the resulting compound verb being idiomatic”

Tom McArthur in the Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992)

notes that these verbs are also referred to by many other names such verb phrase, discontinuous verbs, compound verb, verb-adverb combination, and verb-particle construction Crystal in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language calls this linguistic phenomenon a “ Multi –word verb” that is the best described as

a lexeme, a unit of meaning that may be greater than a single word

A phrasal verb is defined by Broukal and Woods as “the combination of a verb plus an adverb particle and sometimes the particle may be followed by a

preposition” They go on to say that “most of the particles look like prepositions but act as adverbs, and usually change the meaning of the verb they are connected” The same definition is given by Kollin M (1982), Easy Grammar Plus Wanda Phillips,

when she states that “Phrasal verbs are common structures in English They consist

of a verb combined with a preposition like word, known as particle” She goes on to

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say that “phrasal verbs include both two-and three-word strings” Examples of such

phrasal verbs are ‘give up’, ‘look after’, ‘hand in’ which include two strings while

‘put up with’, ‘give in to’ and ‘put up for’ include three strings

Phrasal verbs are considered by Graver as “semi-compounds” whereas

Palmer [Palmer, F R.(1998) The English Verb London, New York: Longman:

180] regards them as “single units in the grammar” He gives reasons for naming

them like that by saying that “there are several collocation restrictions We can give

up but not give down We can look after someone but not look before him” He adds that phrasal verbs are “obviously semantic units” because ‘give in’ equals ‘yield’,

‘look after’ may be replaced by the literary ‘tend’, ‘put up’ has the meaning of

‘invent’, and ‘put up with’ means ‘tolerate’ What has been stated by Palmer

concerning the treatment of phrasal verbs as single units is quite true and has a solid basis simply because we have to place certain prepositions or adverbs after certain verbs in order to convey meanings or concepts All these definitions lead to another aspect proposed for discussion, which is the classification of phrasal verbs

in English language In addition to this, it is necessary to distinguish between phrasal and prepositional verbs

2.2.1.2 Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in language It primarily focus on the correlation between the symbolic constituent of a sentence such as words and phrases and what they demonstrate for, their references First discovered by French linguist Michel Breal, the word semantics relates series of awareness from normal using to higher application In simple meaning it describes a range of understanding which could carry out the word choice According to Breal (1890), the difference between semantics and syntax is syntax is just a formal arrangement of constituents

of a language without their own meanings, while semantics requires the critical meaning for every use of words

There are many theories of semantics which have been studied and analyzed for centuries and they could be generally classified into three basic concepts:

Model theoretic semantics: Discovered by Richard Montague in the late 1960s, this formal theory of ordinary language semantics is about how and in which expressions reflect their relational meaning among themselves And more amazingly, the truth values of a sentence and its reasonable denotations to other sentence are analyzed to a model (Montague, 1960)

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Truth conditional semantics: First mentioned by the linguist Donald Davidson in 1973, the theory tries to find the language connection with the reality which differenates it from model theoretic semantics Its result shows that every component of a sentence must rely and reflect the truth conditions of itself in order

to carry out the true meaning of the combination There is a simple example for this theory: “Winter is cold” is true only when winter is cold, if two conditions of the meaning “winter” and “cold” are not logical with each other then the semantics could not be performed

Lexical semantics: is the theory of context It states that the meaning of a word is totally revealed by its situation Each component of the sentence must collaborate with others in terms of meanings which could depend on their own level and form in order to carry out the meaning of the sentence As a result, it would be easier for the speakers to convenient deliver their thoughts depending on the current

For example: He uses a lot of unusual expressions

"A can of worms" is an expression that means "a difficult situation"

2.2.2.2 Concepts of set expressions

As many languages English and Vietnamese, set expressions are own phrases and sentences that used daily in communication, in speech as well as in writing Set expressions require fixed phrases, sentences, expressions and proverbs

According to Nguyen Hoa (2001), Set expressions are word-groups consisting of two or more words whose combinations are integrated as a specialized

meaning of the whole such as to see the red light, to give one a big hand etc

Set expressions have been sometimes called word equivalents, and they have been postulated that the vocabulary of a language consists of words and words equivalents (word group), similar to word in so far as they are not created in speech but introduced into the act of communication ready-made If substitution is only pronominal, or restricted to few synonyms for one of the only, or impossible, i.e if the elements of the phrase are always the same and bring a fixed context for each other, the word-group is a set expression

The following are some definitions of expressions that are given in dictionaries, and they are understood and defined by linguists

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (533) gives the following

definition: idiom is a “peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage though having meaning not deducible from those of the separate words.”

A more detailed description is given in Webster’s New World Dictionary (670): idiom is “a phrase, construction, or expression that is recognized as a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together”

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (163) relates to an

idiom as an expression the meaning of which “cannot be deduced by examining the meanings of the constituent lexemes“, the expression being both grammatically and lexically fixed

Cambridge International Dictionary of Expressions (vii) suggests that one of

the problems with expressions is that it is often impossible to guess the meaning of

an idiom from the words that it contains, emphasizing the fact that expressions often have a stronger meaning than non-idiomatic phrases

Dictionaries provide rather general and brief descriptions of expressions Linguistic works, on the other hand, which specialize in this particular field of expressions, take into consideration various aspects of expressions and thus can appear to be more descriptive A set expression is a group of two or more words that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words Expressions are colloquialisms or expressions that people say

For example: ‘raining cats and dogs” – this idiom means that it’s raining heavily

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B Proverbs

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Hornby, 2006), a proverb is a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice or says something that

is generally true, for example: Time is money

According to Linda and Roger Flavell (1993), proverb is a concise sentence, often metaphorical or alliterative in form, which is held to express some truth ascertained by experience or observation and familiar to all

Paul Hermadi and Francis Steen (1999) make it clearly by considering proverbs brief, memorable, and intuitively convincing formulation of socially sanctioned advice The concept of proverb is, however, a bit different in Vietnamese

Alan Dundes (1978) standing on the concept defined structure: A proverb is

a traditional propositional statement consisting of at least one descriptive element consisting of a topic and comment

However, in Vietnamese, the concept of proverb is a bit different Vietnamese dictionary defines proverb as short statements, often expressed with rhythm, which sum up knowledge, life experience and moral lesson of people

According to Phạm Văn Bình (1993), a proverb is a complete sentence expressing an idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism

Nguyễn Thái Hòa (2009) was conceived: A proverb is the mouthpiece formed in everyday speech Those are the words but units that exist in the memory

of the community as a unit of language

For example:

- Ăn cây táo, rào cây sung

- Lên voi xuống chó

- Mưa dầm thấm lâu,…

In short, in the opinion of many researchers, although few short ways, proverb is also a sentence expressing a full meaning, the meaning of the proverb is a combination of its constituents The meaning of the proverb may be a comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism

We also can indicate some following common features of proverb according

to Obeng (1996):

- Proverbs are passed down through time with little change in form

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- Proverbs are often used metaphorically and they are understood by their

metaphorical nature that we can unravel their meaning

For example:

A stick in times saves nine

Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

- Proverbs often make use of grammatical and theoretical devices that help

to make them memorable, including alliteration, rhyme, parallel structure, repetition

of key words or phrases, and strong imagery

C Collocations

In Oxford Collocation Dictionary (2003), collocation is defined as the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing or a particular combination of words used in this way

“The term collocation refers to combination of two lexical items each of

which makes a distinct semantic contribution”

(Stephan Grimly and Kurt – Michael Patrol, 2002)

Collocations represent something new in the way human mind perceive and understand the language

A collocation can be defined in many ways For instance in The English Oxford Dictionary published between 1884 and 1928, collocation is described as the action of setting in a place or position, especially of placing together with, or side

by side with something else Furthermore, this explanation is connected with the arrangement of a word in a sentence “which partly clarifies the main use of

a collocation A comprehensive definition can be found in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary where a collocation is viewed as a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning” Other dictionaries simply notice the main property of a collocation which is the fact

a word collocates with other words or just contain an incomplete definition such as

a grouping together of things in a certain order, as of the words in a sentence (Macmillan Dictionary) This second definition can be easily misunderstood, because the readers may believe that a collocation

is in fact a group of anything that is organized in a certain order Moreover, not only the words can co-locate but also the numbers so creating a direct connection

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between collocations and the study of language is practically impossible especially for the un-experienced language learners It is to be noticed that a proper explanation of a collocation can only be found in the comprehensive, advanced or technical version of a dictionary

- A collocation (also collocate) is a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to speakers of the language

For example: heavy rain

- An expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things

- The words together can mean more than their sum of parts

For example: disk drive

Collocations: An arrangement or juxtaposition of words or other elements, especially those that commonly used together

For example: bright idea, or dead serious etc

2.2.3 The verbs “Take” and “Bring” in English

“Take” and “Bring” are ones motion verbs that have a wide range of meanings and used frequency in English The meanings of these verbs include a

specification of the direction of motion “Take” means movement with something or

someone from where the speaker or listener is to a different place:

[University assistant at a central faculty office, speaking to a student]

You have to fill in this form and then take it to the English Department to get

it stamped (The assistant and the student are at the central faculty office – the

English Department is a different place)

A: I can take you to the station tomorrow What time is your train? (Neither

A nor B is at the station; it is a different place.)

B: Thanks It’s eight-thirty

“Bring” means moving something or someone The movement is either from

where the listener is to where the speaker is, or from the speaker to the listener

Bring is an irregular verb Its past tense and -ed form are both brought

B: Yes

A: Can you bring me my grey sweater? It’s on the bed

B: Yeah (B will return with the sweater to the place where A is.)

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“Take” and “Bring” belong to the sub-group of transitive verbs As a transitive verb, its subject is an agent and it can combine with an indirect object, a direct object, or to infinitive, etc For examples:

These creatures are generally taken to be descended from primitive fishes

I could have taken him for (= believed that he was) your brother

I'm not going to forge his signature for you! What do you take me for? (=

You should not believe I could do a thing like that.)

Can we deal with this without bringing the police in.

I’d like to bring Inspector Lacey in on this investigation

In short, in term of semantic, “Take” and “Bring” are considered the motion verbs The meanings of these verbs are created via transference of meaning

Syntactically, “Take” and “Bring” are the verbs with diverse syntactic sttructures They can be used with a direct object, indirect object, noun phrase, and with prepositions or adverbs as well

2.2.4 The verbs “Take” and “Bring” in Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, verbs have been studied by some researchers such as Nguyễn Minh Thuyết and Nguyễn Văn Hiệp (1998), Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh (2001)

The verbs “Take” and “Bring” in English have variety of meaning and its usages in contexts and there have the same in Vietnamese counterpart The verb

“Take” in Vietnamese have meaning “cầm, nắm, giữ, có, mang đi, mang theo, chọn, mua, etc”

For example: he took her in his arms and kissed her

Anh ta ôm cô ấy trong tay và hôn cô ấy

The verb “Bring” in Vietnamese have meaning “cầm lại, mang lại, làm cho, gây cho, sinh ra, gây ra, etc”

For example: Bring me a cup of tea - Đem lại cho tôi một tách trà!

However, they sometimes do not share the equivalent in meanings To some extent, it is not too difficult to find such circumtances in which people use “mang đi” and “mang đến” For example: “về thăm thành phố, náo nức mùa xuân, ba lô trên lưng, mang theo nhánh lan rừng” or “anh mang theo về con tim yêu thương”, etc

“Mang đi” và “Mang đến” are monosyllabic words like other Vietnamese words They have only one form in any mood, voices and tenses They have no

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derivates This means there is no changes in apprearance of them in any statement

or sentence

- Ngày mai tớ sẽ mang sách trả cho cậu

- Hôm qua cô ấy đã mang sách trả cho thư viện chưa?

Nothing changes to “Mang đi” and “Mang đến” in any tenses with any number or person, while “Mang đi” và “Mang đến” have to change in accordance with different tenses, number and person To indicate tenses in Vietnamese, the words “đã”, “sẽ”, “đang”, “vừa mới”, “sắp”, and “rồi” are often used These verbs usually have no derivations

2.3 Summary

This chapter of the paper has reviewed the previous research related to the study Verbs and expressions have so far been studied by many researchers and discussed in many grammar books as well as researches at different levels in both English and Vietnamese However, no studies have been carried out on expressions containing “Take” and “Bring” Besides, this chapter has also presented general notions of expressions, verbs, expressions and the verb “take” and “bring” to be suitable for the analysis of the study To sum up, what has been considered in this chapter will all serves as the fundamental and essential theoretical background for the analysis of expressions containing “Take” and “Bring” in the following chapter

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Chapter 3: THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERBS “TAKE” AND

“BRING” AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

This chapter deals with the syntactic and semantic features of two English expressions containing the verb “Take” and “Bring” and their Vietnamese equivalents Many expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring” in English

as well as in Vietnamese have been found in our materials, but due to the scope of the research, more than one hundred English and Vietnamese expressions are thought to be widely used and selected for the study For English expressions, a number of reference books are consulted but the main one are English Idioms in Use (2002), English Phrasal Verbs in Use (2003), Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions (2006), Dictionary of the English Language (2011) For Vietnamese ones, a large number of expressions are selected from these books: Từ điển thành ngữ Anh – Việt thông dụng (1995) and Tuyển tập Thành ngữ Tục ngữ

Ca dao Việt – Anh thông dụng (2007) To begin with, a discussion on the syntactic features of English expressions containing the verbs “Take” and “Bring”

3.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE VERBS “TAKE” AND “BRING”

3.1.1 Syntactic Features of English expressions containing the verbs

“Take”

In the terms of syntactic features, Take is described as belonging Take belongs to the sub-group of transitive verbs As a transitive verb, its subject is an agent and it can combine with an indirect object, a direct object, or to infinitive, etc

In other words, the verb Take can be used in the following structures:

Structure A

Let us consider the following examples:

(01) “I forgot something”, he said to the driver:

“Take me to the law offices of Tolman and Sharp – at 56 Broadway”

(“Tôi có quên cái gì”, anh nói với người lái xe:)

(“Cho tôi đến văn phòng luật của Tolman và Sharp - ở 56 Broadway”)

(02) When he is arrested and taken to jail, he asks at once for a razor and latest magazines

Take + NP + Adv/PP

(Viên cai ngục mỉm cười “Được rồi, Cronin”, ông ta nói với người lính gác,

“dẫn y trở lại xà lim – và đưa cho y một bộ quần áo.)

(4) It had been more than a year since the three robberies, and he felt now that he could safely venture out and take a trip to a bigger city

(Hơn một năm đã qua từ ba vụ trộm và bây giờ anh cảm thấy có thể an toàn đánh bạo ra ngoài và thực hiện một chuyến đi tới một thành phố lớn hơn.)

Here we can see that the verb Take combines with a noun phrase, and is followed by a preposition In the example (01) Take is seen as collocated with direct object – me, and propositional phrase to the law offices But in (02) the object of Take has been converted into the subject he in a passive rather structure and Take is modified by a preposition to, and a noun – jail; or rather a prepositional phrase to jail A synonymous structure, ie, Take + O +Adv + Prep + N can be found in (4)

with particle back being translated into Vietnamese as lại From these examples, it

is clear that the Vietnamese equivalents of Take can be cho or đưa and the syntactic structure that goes with this is đưa/cho + ai + đến + nơi nào

Structure B

Let us consider the following examples:

(5) When Katy comes home, I’ll take her out and let her have some amusement

(Khi nào Katy về nhà tôi sẽ dắt ngay ra ngoài để cho nàng giải trí)

(6) So I took the next train back

(Nên em đi chuyến xe lửa kế tiếp để trở về)

(7) And then after declaring that he could not pay the bill, a policeman would come and take him away

(Và rồi sau khi tuyên bố rằng ông không thể trả cái hóa đơn thanh toán, một cảnh sát viên sẽ đến điệu ông đi.)

Take + Od + A P

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The instances aboves show how Take is used in collocation with a direct object him, her (5), (7) and the next train in (6), and particle away or adverbial phrase back As such, Take in this structure can be randered into Vietnamese as dắt/kiệu + ai/ vật gì + đi/về

Structure C

Let us consider the following examples:

(8)John took the cold meat from the refrigerator, made coffee, and sat down

(Lúc ấy chàng lấy từ túi áo khoác ra một cái gói và quẳng nó lên bàn)

From the above mentioned examples, Take is seen to be modified by a direct object, which is then followed by a prepositional phrase, often beginning with from This structure can be rendered into Vietnamese as lấy cái gì…từ một nơi nào ra Here we can see that, when this structure is rendered into Vietnamese, particle is added after the final NP As such, the Vietnamese equivalents for Take in this structure would be Lấy + cái gì + từ đâu ra

Structure D

Let us consider the following examples:

(11) I am going to take the 4:30 train

(Em sắp đi chuyến tàu lửa bốn giờ rưỡi)

(12) Take a look at this, if you wish

(Hãy nhìn cái này nếu ông muốn)

(13) The policement twirled his club and took a step or two

Take + NP + PP (from + noun)

Take + NP

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(Viên cảnh sát quay quay cái dùi cui và đi một vài bước)

(14) The burglar took his right arm

(Tên trộm nắm lấy cánh tay phải của ông ta)

Take combines with noun to express an action: to look at something or to step in The meaning of take, actually, depends on the noun following it Besides, take can combine with nouns to express đón, bắt + xe/tàu/thuyền + về/đi as can be found in collocated noun phrases as take a bus, take a train, take a flight, etc

Structure E

Bellow are some examples:

(15) It took him at least ten years to pay off his college bills contracted

during his father’s life time

(Nguyên món nợ tiền ăn tại ký túc xá trường đại học hồi bố lão ta còn sống

cũng đã phải mất mười năm mới trả hết.)

(16) It won’t take two minutes for what I have to say

(Điều tôi cần nói đến sẽ không mất hai phút đâu)

Vietnamese equivalents of this structure would be Ai + phải mất + bao lâu +

để làm gì Here is the meaning of Take is synonymous with get – Lấy mất When

rendering this structure into Vietnamese the object of the sentence (16) him becomes the subject of Vietnamese translated version

3.1.2 Syntactic Features of English expressions containing the verb

“Bring”

It is generally assumes the verb Bring involves some sense of physical motion, which can be referred as the transitive correspondents of come Therefore, Bring has come sense of motion, and is often followed by an object which is found

in the form of a noun or a noun phrase In some structures, Bring is said to be collocated with direction and movement words, or rather particles like here, there, away, back, etc These adverbs, when rendered into Vietnamese, often take equivalent particles including “ra”, “theo”, “từ”, “vào”, “lên”, which are added after the noun or the noun phrase Traditional grammar often base on formal mark having (preposition or no preposition) to distinguish between direct object and indirect object In other structures, Bring is modified by both a direct and a indirect object

It + Take + NP + time + to do sth

It + Take + time + for + NP

=+Take + NP

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recognized in the form of pronoun, a noun or a noun phrase When Bring is a verb

of movement, the prepositions “to” and “with” are found common in movement toward the speaker and it implies come here Below are the structures of the verb Bring:

Structure A

Let us consider the following examples:

(15) I’ll bring the tools with me

(Ta sẽ mang theo các đồ nghề)

(16) The castrophe came, and she was brought to the Moll as to her home (Sau khi bố chết, Beebecca bị đưa về Môn ăn học)

(17) I think I loved you from the first minute that I saw you, when George brought me to your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was engaged to

From the examples above, we can find that the Vietnamese equivalents of this structure may include mang + cái gì + theo or mang (đến) + cho ai + cái gì or mang + cái gì + đến cho ai In the passive structure that was brought is found, and

in this case, the object of bring becomes the subject of the sentence she Besides, we can have other Vietnamese equivalents of Bring such as nhận được từ instead of mang đến cho ai as can be found in (16)

Structure B

Look at the example:

Mrs Sedly having brought the two lovers together and left them embracing each other with all their might, like a true woman

(Quả là một người đàn bà thực sự, sau khi cho đôi trẻ gặp nhau, bà Xetle

đích thân cho phép thả sức hôn nhau đằm thắm)

In (16) the structure Bring + NP + Adverbial is used as an idiomatic expression that expresses the related world Here, a noun phrase is absent after the adverbial which can be together, or back, or away And the Vietnamese equivalents

of this would be cho + ai + đến với nhau, mang + ai + đi, or đưa + ai + về

Structure C

Bring + NP/Object + PP/PO

Bring + NP + Adv

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For example:

Indeed he had an almost invincible repugnance to paying anybody, and could

only brought by force to discharge his debts

(Vì xưa nay lão vẫn có tính thù ghét sự trả tiền cho bất cứ ai và chỉ khi nào bị cưỡng bách thì lão mới chịu thanh toán nợ.)

The subject of the sentence becomes the Causer of action, forcing someone

to do something, so Bring here create the meaning “someone must do something because of the forces”

Structure D

The following instance is taken to inllustrate the structure above:

(17) I was driving this way, and Tolman asked me to bring you the money (Tôi đi xe về lối này nên Tolman nhờ tôi mang tiền đến cho cô.)

As can be seen in (17) the indirect object you, and direct object money, when rendered in Vietnamese, can be more flexibly placed whereby the direct object money – tiền will stand before the preposition to – đến and direct object – cho cô

3.2 Semantics features of expressions containing the verb “Take” and

“Bring”

3.2.1 Semantic features of expressions containing the verb “Take”

The meaning of expressions is different from the sum of the literal meaning

of its components, so it is very challenging to a majority of learners in mastering the true conversational English expressions The degree of challenges depends on the degree of semantic opacity of expressions In this section, we will attempt to discuss different meaning of “Take” and “Bring” in English expressions

The meaning of English expressions containing the verb “Take” can be illustrated as follows with the following examples:

a Showing the meaning “To have a similar appearance or character as an older member of your family”

Bring + NP + to infinitive

Bring + D.O + I O

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For example:

-

-

- He takes after his father (Anh ấy trông rất giống cha)

b Showing the meaning “To separate something into its different parts”

- Rod loves taking clocks apart, but he never manages to put them together

again

(Rod yêu thích việc tháo đồng hồ ra từng bộ phận nhưng anh ấy không bao

giờ xoay xở để lắp chúng lại)

- She took the photocopier apart to see what had got stuck in it

(Cô ấy mở tách máy phô tô ra để xem cái gì bị mắc ở bên trong ấy)

c Showing the meaning “to surprise or shock someone so much that they

do not know how tobehave for a short time”

- The news of her death took me aback

(Cái tin về cái chết của cô ấy hoàn toàn khiến tôi bị sốc)

d Showing the meaning “to walk through a building or to visit a place with someone, showing them the most interesting or important parts”

- I’m glad to see you here So let me take you around my company (Tôi rất

vui khi thấy ông ở đây Để tôi giới thiệu một chút về công ty tôi.)

- I’d like a national tour for two people, so could

you take me around some? (Tôi muốn một chuyến du lịch trong nước cho 2 người,

chị có thể giới thiệu cho tôi một chút được không?)

- Are you free this evening? I’ll take you around to my favorite Thai

restaurant (Tối nay em rảnh không? Anh sẽ dẫn em đi ăn ở nhà hàng Thái yêu thích của anh.)

- I’d like to know more about this museum Would you

mind taking me around again? (Tôi muốn tìm hiểu thêm về bảo tàng này Anh có

thể đưa tôi tham quan lại được không?)

Hi Dolores,

You’ll be pleased to hear the new baby’s doing fine We’ve decided to name him after his grandfather, Patrick He has blue eyes and quite fair hair, so he

takes after his father I find it hard to imagine myself bringing up a child We me

luck for the next 18 years!

Love, Cathy

a

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e Showing the meaning “To separate someone from a group of people so that you can speak to them privately”

- My boss took me aside at the Christmas party and told me he was going to

give me a promotion in the New Year

(Sếp tôi đưa tôi ra khỏi bữa tiệc giáng sinh và nói với tôi rằng ông ấy sẽ thăng chức cho tôi trong dịp năm mới)

- The teacher took her aside and said that she'd failed the exam

(Giáo viên gọi cô ấy ra một mình và nói rằng cô ấy đã trượt kỳ thi)

f Showing the meaning “If you take one number away from another one, you subtract the first number from the second”

If you take 11 away from 33, you left with 22

(Nếu bạn lấy 33 trừ đi 11, bạn sẽ còn lại 22)

g Showing the meaning “To return something to the person or organization that you borrowed or bought it from”

When you go into town to take back your library books could you also take these trousers back to the shop for me – They are too small

(Nếu bạn vào thị trấn để trả sách cho thư viện bạn có thể lấy những chiếc quần này và trả lại cho cửa hang giúp mình với được không – chúng quá nhỏ)

h Showing the meaning “To admit that something you said was wrong”

- I shouldn’t have called you lazy – I take it back (Tôi không nên nói rằng

bạn lười biếng , tôi rút lại lời nói của mình)

- You’re rigt – I take back what I said, it was totally inappropriate

(Anh đã đúng – Em rút lại những gì mình đã nói, chúng thực sự là không đúng)

i Showing the meaning “If something takes you back, it makes you remember a period or an event in the past”

- “If you’re young, come on a journey into the past before you were born If

you’re senior, let us take you back to your childhood”

(Nếu bạn còn trẻ, hãy làm một chuyến hành trình trở về quá khứ trước khi bạn được sinh ra, nếu bạn đã trung niên, hãy hồi tưởng lại thời thơ ấu của bạn)

- That song always takes me back to when I was at university

(Bài hát đã gợi tôi nhớ lại thời khi tôi học đại học)

j Showing the meaning “To write something, especially something that someone says / to remove something that was previously put up or put in place”

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- The police took down his answers to their questions

(Cảnh sát ghi chép lại câu trả lời của anh ấy với những câu hỏi của họ)

- People take down their Christmas decorations twelve days after Christmas

(Mọi người di rời vật trang chí giáng sinh mười ngày sau kỳ giáng sinh)

k Showing the meaning “To let someone stay in your house”

Because so many passengers were stranded at the airport, some local

families offered to take them in overnight

(Vì rất nhiều hành khách bị rớt chuyến tại sân bay nên một số gia đình người dân địa phương đã đề nghị họ nghỉ lại qua đêm

l Showing the meaning “To deceive someone, or to make someone believe something that it not true”

- The new is so shocking – I still can’t take it in

(Tin ấy quá sốc – tôi vẫn không thể tin mình bị đánh lừa)

- Rob was totally dishonest but he was so charming that I was taken in by

him (Rob thật sự đã không trung thực nhưng anh ấy quá khéo léo đến nỗi mà tôi đã

bị anh ấy đánh lừa)

m Showing the meaning “To look at something carefully, noticing all the details”

He showed us a photo of his house, but I was so tired that I didn’t really take

it in

(Anh ấy cho chúng tôi xem bức ảnh ngôi nhà anh ấy nhưng tôi quá mệt nên

đã không xem kỹ được nó)

n Showing the meaning “To understand the meaning or importance of news or information, or to understand and remember facts”

Rory: I found it difficult to understand the full importance of the decision

Anna: yes, me too I found it hard to take in its significance at first

(Vâng, em cũng vậy, thật khó để để hiểu được ý nghĩa của nó ngay từ đầu)

o Showing the meaning “To remove something, especially something that you are wearing”

Please take off your shoes when you enter the temple

(Vui lòng cởi giày khi đi vào đền)

p Showing the meaning “(of an aircraft) to leave theground and fly”

The plane took off on time (Máy bay đã cất cánh đúng giờ)

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q Showing the meaning “to suddenly become popular or successful”

The new product really took off among teens

(Sản phẩm mới đã thật sự phổ biến trong giới trẻ)

r Showing the meaning “to make someone very tired”

Running around after 25 preschooler stakes it out of me by the end of the week

(Chạy vòng quanh sau 25 học sinh khiến tôi vô cùng mệt mỏi trong ngày cuối tuần)

s Showing the meaning “to remove something from somewhere”

I need to get this tooth taken out

(Tôi cần nhổ chiếc răng này)

t Showing the meaning “To accept a particular job or responsibility and begin to do what is needed”

- She took on the task of indexing the book

(Cô ấy chịu trách nhiệm tạo mục lục cho sách)

- The council has had to take on twenty extra employees to handle their increased workload

(Hội đồng vừa phải tuyển thêm hai mươi nhận viên để giải quyết vụ tăng

ca việc

u Showing the meaning “ to begin to have control of something”

The bank was taken over by a Hong Kong bank that needed to buy a bank to get into the British market

(Ngân hàng này đã bị chi phối bởi một ngân hàng Hồng Công khi mà họ cần phải mua một ngân hàng để tiến tới thị trường Anh)

v Showing the meaning “to explain something to someone”

- He took me through the procedures before we started

(Anh ta giải thích cho tôi tất cả các thủ tục trước khi chúng tôi bắt đầu)

w Showing the meaning “To be very busy doing something”

She is so taken up with her job that she wouldn’t even take me up on my

office

(Cô ấy quá bận rộn với công việc đến nỗi mà cô ấy thậm chí không đón tôi ở

văn phòng.)