The English language is full of idioms and metaphors relating to animals. For example, do you know what it means if someone calls you "a dark horse"? And do you know what "a wild goose chase" is? If not, then you should have a look at the Animal Idioms and Metaphors iPad app ($1.99).
DESCRIPTION
This app presents 75 of most useful and popular animal metaphors. Each animal metaphor comes not only with an explanations but also with useful day-to-day examples. In addition, there are also fun facts and animal sounds for the learner to better appreciate the meaning of the idiom and metaphor. The app also has a quiz section to encourage deeper learning by allowing students to drag and drop animal tiles to answer questions in an interactive and creative way. The student will be rewarded with beautiful animated animal stickers if he can pass the 1 minute time-quiz with flying colors. There are a total of 150 questions and 25 beautifully designed stickers to be won.
VERDICT
Although this app is aimed at primary school children, older learners (including adults) could get a lot out of it as well. However, there is one big weakness—the English is very dodgy in places, and some of the explanations are just plain wrong. For example, "to go to bat for is to describe showing support for someone." In fact, this expression has nothing to do with the winged mammal, but is a metaphor from the game of baseball. You would think that, having invested time and money in developing an attractive app, the author (obviously a non-native speaker) would have had gone to the trouble of having the English checked. For an app designed to teach English, that's an unforgivable omission.
The new improved version is now available
https://itunes.apple.com/app/new-animal-metaphors-idioms/id548254677?mt=8
Posted by: andrew | 01/28/2013 at 09:59 AM