Who taught : Raul, Brian and Richard

Supposed that you are in a sailboat! There would be bunch of ropes which are really important to be controlled by crew members to stay safe in the sea. Now, what if you are a newbie in the boat! You would not know what to do with the ropes. So, the first thing you need to learn is how to deal with ropes. There it is! “Learn the ropes.” Here is the definition of the expression.

to understand or learn how to do a particular job

For example, you have a new engineer in your team. You would expect that he/she would not know how to do his/her job for a few weeks or maybe a few months. Then, you can say, “He/She needs some time to learn the ropes.” Now, a few months later, he/she becomes better at his/her work and knows what he/she is doing. Then, guess what you can say? “Finally, he/she knows the ropes!”

Speaking of a sailboat, there are bunch of expressions with “fish” in it. One thing I hear a lot in my work, especially in conference calls with customer, is “I’ve got other fish to fry.” It means I have some other works to do. So, when there is a time that you need to say some excuse for working on any item because of your busy schedule, try to use this expression instead of using plain English, such as “I have other works to do.”

Another simple word related with fish is “fishy.” Have you ever been to a market where there are so many kind of fish? It is so smelly. So, when you say something is fishy, it means you suspect something.You can say, “it is fishy” or “she is fishy.”

Oh, fish name is something I still cannot figure out in English. Can you guys teach me some fish names?