Creative and Critical Thinking Challenge! (English Riddles)

Tom Wilkinson

Host and founder of Thinking in English, Tom is committed to providing quality and interesting content to all English learners. Previously a research student at a top Japanese university and with a background in English teaching, political research, and Asian languages, Tom is now working fulltime on bettering Thinking in English!

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Today, I want you all to practice using your critical, creative, and out-of-the-box thinking skills by answering a few challenging English riddles!

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(If you can’t see the podcast player CLICK HERE to listen!!)

This is the fourth riddle episode I have created on Thinking in English, but the first for over 6 months! I actually ran out of time to write a full episode for today, but I still wanted to provide something for all of you listening. And riddles are actually an excellent way for you to practice and test your ability to think in English. 

A riddle is a phrase, question, or statement that requires you to think creatively to answer. The solution to them is often not as simple as you think. Riddles are an amazing way to get your brain working, test your ability to think creatively and outside-of-the-box, and challenge your vocabulary knowledge. In any case, they are fun to try!

I’ll also give you the same tip I provided in my riddle episodes from a few months ago. Think about every word in the riddle, which words are important or unimportant, and how things are spelled. Sometimes meaning is important, but sometimes it isn’t necessary to solve a riddle. Like I said earlier, the challenge is to think creatively and try to find an unexpected answer!

I’ll give you 5 riddles in this episode – you’ll be able to read them in the description of the podcast and on the blog. If you listen on Spotify, I’ll also give you a bonus riddle in the QnA function! I will post the answers on my Instagram story later this week, or you can just message me on Instagram and I’ll tell you if you are right or not!

Let’s get started!

Riddle 1

What is always in front of you but can’t be seen? 

Riddle 2

What month of the year has 28 days? 

Riddle 3

There’s a one-story house in which everything is yellow. Yellow walls, yellow doors, yellow furniture. What colour are the stairs?

Riddle 4

You see me once in June, twice in November and not at all in May. What am I? 

Riddle 5

What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps? 

If you want to check your answers, message Thinking in English Podcast on Instagram. 

Check out some of our previous episodes and find all podcast transcripts for free on thinkinginenglish.blog! 

And as always thank you for listening!

Answers

You can get the answers for free by going over to thinkinginenglishpodcast on Instagram, sending me a message, or contacting me through the blog. HOWEVER, for a very small donation to the blog you can read the answers below!

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