Idiom Ripped Off American English Pronunciation

In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to go over the idiom ‘ripped off’.

To be ripped off means to be swindled or cheated.
For example: they overcharged me by 10 bucks,

I was ripped off.

Ripped off begins with the R sound. Since
it’s a beginning R, your lips will come in

and round quite a bit, rr, your tongue needs
to be pulled this way, rrr, and you should

be able to hold out that sound. R-ih. Then
we have the IH as in SIT vowel. So the jaw

drops a little bit, the tongue tip is down
behind the bottom front teeth, and the front

part of the tongue lifts a bit towards the
roof of the mouth. Ri-, ri-. Then we have

the P-T cluster. The ED is pronounced as a
T because the sound before is unvoiced, pt,

pt. So the lips come together for the P, when
they open the tongue goes to the roof of the

mouth for the T, p-t, p-t, ripped, ripped.
The next word begins with a vowel, so we want

to make sure to link it the to word before.
So, it might feel like the T sound begins

the word ‘off’ – toff, toff, ripped off,
ripped off. ‘Off’ with the AW as in LAW sound,

ripped aw– give yourself a little jaw drop.
And finally, the F consonant sound, where

the bottom lip comes up, ff, and the inside
of it makes contact with the bottom of the

top front teeth. Ripped off, ripped off. DA-DA,
these are both stressed words. So it’s not

da-DA, or DA-da. It’s DA-DA. Ripped off. I
was ripped off.

Have you ever been ripped off? Make up a sentence
using this idiom and record yourself – post

it on YouTube as a video response to this
video. I can’t wait to watch.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.