adjective
- not conforming to the natural patterns or expressions of a language; not idiomatic
Usage: linguistics; language learning
Examples
- The student’s translation was grammatically correct but unidiomatic.
- His unidiomatic English revealed that he was still learning the language.
- The phrase ‘make a walk’ is unidiomatic; native speakers say ‘take a walk.’
- Computer translations often produce unidiomatic results.
- The teacher corrected the unidiomatic expressions in the essay.
- Her speech was technically accurate but sounded unidiomatic to native listeners.