A little about the website

This website is for high-level English language learners B2-C2 (B1 lessons and blogs will be available shortly).  I have called the website ‘*Candid Rich’ as I will try to be as open and honest as possible and will leave nothing unsaid, well almost nothing, I do need to keep working after all.  Rich is my name and the ‘Candid Rich’ blogs, podcast and videos will also be *rich in English.  They will be rich in British *idiomatic and *colloquial language.

The blogs and podcast will be accompanied by language lessons, which you will be able to find in the lessons tab on the homepage.  The episodes and lessons will be a mix of light amusing personal travel and life stories including some of the *scrapes I’ve managed to get into and thankfully out of over the years. It will also cover *obscure cultural observations, and current affairs – politics and economics in countries around the world from an on the ground perspective.

Readers will not only learn English but they can travel virtually and learn about the world as they do.  There is also nothing stopping those who are native speakers of English following my travels, *musings and *off the cuff comments.  Everyone is welcome.

Note: Where you see a ‘*’ next to a word, you can click on the ‘definitions’ box at the bottom of that page for meaning. Some words in English have many meanings, however the definitions given will be in the context of the sentence only; I will not list all definitions for each word. 

My story

Let me introduce myself, my name is Richard, Rich for short, and I have been a teacher of English as a foreign language for about 18 years, 8 of those years at a school in the UK.  I’ve lived abroad teaching English for nearly half of my adult life and now currently living in Europe after recently returning from travelling South America.  I’m a native speaker of English having been born and raised in England.  Not long after finishing university in London, I said good bye to friends and family and headed off to Asia, the rest as they say is history.  I’ve travelled to numerous countries over the years; can’t be arsed to count.  I can however say with confidence that I’ve been to 6 out of the 7 continents with the remainder being Antarctica, although I’ve been to Ushuaia on the southernmost tip of Patagonia, which is pretty much as close as you can actually get without going (1100km) and close enough for me.

It’s safe to say that I have more than a few stories to *regale you with and have met some interesting characters on the way who you’ll get to know all about in my stories.  Some characters such as the Bruce – a crazy *hell-raising but *fun-loving guy that I have had more than a few *hair-raising adventures with, will reappear in different episodes.

*candid (adj) – honest and telling the truth, especially about something difficult or painful   

*rich (adj) in something – containing a lot of something good or useful   

*idiomatic (adj) – expressions that are natural to a native speaker

*colloquial (adj) (of words and expressions) – informal language and more suitable for use in speech   

*scrape (n) [ Countable ] (informal) -a difficult or slightly dangerous situation that you cause by your own silly behaviour   

*obscure (adj) – not known to many people

*musings (n) [ Plural ] – your thoughts or comments on something you have been thinking about carefully and for a long time   

*off the cuff (idiom) – If you speak off the cuff, you say something without having prepared or thought about your words first

*regale (v) – to entertain someone with jokes or stories  

*hell-raising (n) (informal British) – behaviour which causes trouble 

*fun-loving (adj) – liking to enjoy yourself and have fun rather than liking serious things 

*hair-raising (adj) – very frightening