Name: BOX SET: English vocabulary mega-class! 🤩 Learn 8 two-word expressions!
Uploaded: 2026-01-13T17:44:12.000Z
Duration: 18 min 38 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello and welcome to the English we speak where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too.

In this program, we're actually going to learn a word that I heard you say when you were talking about food.

So yeah, earlier I was talking about going to my brother's house where I had some amazing plant based food.

I couldn't believe how tasty it was with no meat or dairy.

So top notch is an adjective that means something is of very high standard or high quality.

I actually had some top notch food recently.

Well, I went to an independent cafe around the corner from my house and they make the best carrot cake.

Beth, can we use top notch for things other than food?

So for example, I went to the theater recently.

I saw a show in the west end and it was the top notch.

The singing was phenomenal, the dancing was amazing.

Now here are some more examples of the adjective top notch.

My friend wrote a book and asked me to read it.

I thought it was going to be really bad, but actually it was top notch.

I went to a conference last week and all of the presentations were absolutely top notch.

I was expecting the hotel to be pretty bad, but it was actually top notch.

We can use top notch to talk about business related things too.

For example, you might be hiring someone for a job and you see a top notch CV that makes you want to give that person an interview.

In this case you could also say, I saw a CV that is top notch.

So top notch is an adjective and it can be put before or after a noun.

So to recap, we've learned the adjective top notch, which means very high quality.

Hello and welcome to the English We Speak with me, Fay Fei and me, Rob.

When we say happy days, we're responding to some information that is good to hear.

So I'm saying it's great news about the extra day off, although I still don't know why I haven't heard about it.

But I can say happy days because the weather's going to be great tomorrow, so I'm off to the beach.

Let's hear some other examples of happy days.

We've saved enough money to go on holiday.

You're listening to the English we speak from BBC Learning English and we're hearing about the expression happy days, which we use informally to respond to good or happy news and happy days.

But Rob, are you sure we have a day off tomorrow?

Oh, looks like we'll have to come to work tomorrow after all.

But look on the bright side, you'll have a whole day working with me.

Welcome to the English we speak with you, Neil, and you, Jiaying.

And for today's English phrase, we're off to the theatre.

The show must go on or the world's a stage.

These are well known theatre related phrases.

this phrase is completely new and describes the act of someone appearing to work hard when in reality they're not being very productive.

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BOX SET: English vocabulary mega-class! 🤩 Learn 8 two-word expressions!

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