Learn how to use and pronounce ‘Learn the Ropes’ comfortably in conversational English: what words or syllables to reduce, how to link everything together, and the melodic shape of the phrase.
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Video Transcript:
Today I’m going to go over the pronunciation of the idiom learn the ropes. First, the meaning. This means to understand how to do something. Learn the ropes. So let’s look at some example sentences. It’s ok to ask questions while you’re learning the ropes. Or, After I learn the ropes, I’l be able to do it on my own. Learn begins with the L consonant sound, ll. It then has the ‘ur’ as in ‘her’ vowel / R consonant sound together: rr, rr, rr, lear-. So your tongue will go from being at the very top, forward part of the roof of the mouth, lear-, rr, to being pulled back, raised in the middle, pressing against the insides of the top teeth with the tip then hanging down, lear-, further back in the mouth. Learn. Then Then the N consonant sound, so the tongue, doing acrobatics here, then has to go back up to the roof of the mouth, learn, to make that N sound. Learn. The: the TH consonant sound, voiced, with the schwa, learn the, learn the. It’s an unaccented word. Ropes begins with the R consonant sound at the beginning of the word. The lip position will be quite tight, rr, rr. The tongue in that same R position. Ro-, the ‘oh’ as in ‘no’ diphthong, ro-pp. The P sound, so the lips have to come together, pp, to release that, and finally, the S sound. Both the P and the S are unvoiced. Ropes, ppss, ppss. Learn the ropes. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.
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