Serviced Accommodation (short-stay lettings) Houses in Multiple Occupation (long-stay residential lettings) You asked me, “What works for the budget that I have?” and “What, in my experience, would be most beneficial?” There is no one-size fits-all answer. The answer depends on what you’re looking for with your money: interest, or cash flow, and how long-term … Read More “Kinds of property management I deal with:” »
Remind me again: what exactly is a mortgage? A mortgage is just a fancy name for the debt you take on to buy a property, in agreement with a bank or building society (similar to a bank). You pay interest on this debt. Right, so what’s a mortgage host? A mortgage host is someone who … Read More “What is a mortgage host?” »
Imagine you buy a stock in the market. Suppose it’s an expensive stock. It costs £100,000. To buy that stock, you need to come up with all the money yourself. It is your money. If you do well with that stock and get lucky, you might make 5% ROI in a year. If you’re doing … Read More “Why intelligent investment in UK real estate is safer than stocks” »
“as safe as houses“ This English idiom “as safe as houses” means very safe, protected, comfortable and completely secure. But, in this post-covid world, your money is not secure. Inflation is eroding away the value of your hard-earned savings, losing 14-20% of their value every year, depending on where in the world you live and … Read More “Investing with me” »
There is something deeply bizarre about being a student. The need to know José Ortega y Gasset, one of the most famous contemporary Spanish philosophers, posits that we have two kinds of needs: internal needs and external needs. We have the ‘needs’ that come from us – our desires – and needs that are imposed … Read More “Help! I want to speak a language but I hate studying it” »
Why do I want to learn a language? What’s so appealing about Japanese? You don’t need to learn it. It probably won’t help you develop in your career. You never need to talk to anyone in Japanese. In fact, you have no friends or family members who speak Japanese. Maybe you’ve never even met a … Read More “Yearning to Learn a Language for No Good Reason” »
Yes. Absolutely. Don’t believe me? Everybody knows that too much TV is bad for you. Sure, that’s definitely true. But, when you want to get natural, authentic, spontaneous fluency in a foreign language, packed with vocabulary and authentic expressions, I say it’s time to ignore that. It’s time to watch more TV. And, like, a … Read More “Can I really learn a language by binge-watching Netflix?” »
What is lexis? What are lexical items? How are they different from vocabulary? Are you learning vocabulary or lexis when you study foreign languages? 1. The problem with learning vocabulary, rather than lexical items There are just so many words to remember! This article was requested by one of my readers. When I asked, “What … Read More “What a “lexical item” is and why you need to know about it” »
So you’ve been learning your target language for a while, but you’re not seeing much progress, and the dream of being able to converse fluently just feels so far out of reach. Sure, you can say a few words and phrases, and maybe even understand basic conversations, but fluency feels like something you can never … Read More “4 free ways to improve your vocabulary: intermediate” »
So you’re a complete beginner and you want to learn a foreign language. How do you get started? How can you start learning vocabulary (and, crucially, how can you do it for free)? Which resources should you start with? Firstly, congratulations. You’ve done one of the toughest steps: actually getting started with learning the language … Read More “How to start learning vocabulary in 4 steps: beginners (free resources)” »