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¶ Understanding "Hot on the Heels" Expression
Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we explain phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too. I'm Fei Fei and I'm here with Hi Fei Fey. I heard an interesting phrase on one of our BBC Learning English podcasts this week. The interviewee was talking about cyber attacks on shop. And hot on the heels of that there were cyber attacks on airlines. I heard this episode. It was very interesting. Just like this phrase, hot on the heels.
It means something happens immediately after something else, often unexpectedly. Yes. Events happen one after the other with not much of a break. For example, my cousin won a cooking competition last week. And hot on the heels of that, she's been asked to cater for a wedding. That's great. One of my favourite singers just released a new album and her new world tour announcement came hot on the heels of the album's release. I booked tickets.
Straight away. I can't wait. Ooh, how exciting. Let's listen to more examples of Hot on the Heels. There's another storm coming tonight, hot on the heels of the flooding yesterday. Hot on the heels of my massive pay rise. I won the lottery. Hot on the heels of their league win, the team then won the cup. We also use hot on the heels to talk about following closely behind someone or something. Especially if you're likely to succeed in what you're aiming to do. Yes.
So we could say the police car was hot on the heels of the robber, which means the officers were very physically close to the robber, chasing them. Yes, or in a running race, the person in second might be hot on the heels of the person in front. They are very close to beating them. And variations of this phrase include hot on the tail or hot on the trail.
For example, I watched a film last night where detectives were hot on the tail of a Kongman. Well, that sounds dramatic. We'll be back next time with another useful English phrase. Goodbye for now.