Do you know someone who is starting to learn English?

We have a new easy video series just for them, the London Letter Challenge.

Three teams race around London to find eight letters, which will take them to the winning crowns.

Watch the series on our websites now, BBClearningEnglish.com.

Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers

so that you can use them as well. I'm Faye Faye and I'm joined by Beth. Hello, Beth. Hi, Faye. Did you

watch the award show last night? With that singer, yes, incredible. The vocals, the outfit, her confidence,

she ate. Uh, when you say eight, you're not talking about food, are you? No, no. In modern slang, eight means someone did something very well.

It's often used for performances and fashion.

Ah, okay, so if someone gives a motivating speech with loads of confidence, I could say they ate.

Absolutely.

So I went to this fancy dress party the other night. My costume ate. It was fantastic.

Oh, I want to see pictures. Let's listen to more examples of eight.

Georgie had such a cool hairstyle yesterday. It absolutely ate.

Did you see the women's Euros football final?

Chloe Kelly's winning penalty, eight.

We went to do some karaoke the other night and Beth chose a big musical song to sing.

She got up there and she ate and left no crumbs.

Now, to sing. She got up there and she ate and left no crumbs. Now we just heard an example with eight and left no crumbs. We can add and ate no crumbs to

mean something is completely faultless. Nothing was left behind or is negative. So it's an even bigger compliment.

Yes. And another word that has a similar meaning to eight is sleigh. You can use them in the

same way, but remember they're both informal slang. You ate that definition, Faye Faye. What an episode.

...