An exciting new resource has been added to the material on offer in the KCI for interpreters and interpreter students.
The fruit of a collaborative project between SCIC and students at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) and the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, The Retouriste’s Compendium aims to demystify English verbs and show retouristes how ‘simple’ verbs can be used to great effect.
So for example, you may well know that ‘to make’ means ‘to cause’ or ‘to produce’, ‘to force’ or even ‘to earn’. But did you know it can also mean ‘arrive’ (‘we won’t make it in time’, ‘you’ll have to hurry if you want to make the train’)? What does it mean if someone has ‘got it made’?
And then, of course, there are the phrasal applications. Did you know that ‘to make out’ can also mean ‘to discern’, ‘to understand’ or ‘to infer’? And what about the differences between ‘to make up’ (to invent or to be reconciled), ‘to be made up about something’ (over the moon) and ‘make-up’ (cosmetics) as a noun? There are also the idiomatic expressions: ‘to make do’, ‘to make ends meet’, ‘to make eyes at’. The list goes on…
So if that has whetted your appetite, go and find out about the other 99 ‘proto-verbs’ in the compendium, which is set to become the retouriste’s new bible.