English vocabulary. Lesson 3

Describing people: appearance
Hair, face, skin and complexion /kəmˈplekʃən/

What sort of person would you find attractive? Blonde, fair, dark or ginger-haired / red-haired?
She has such beautiful auburn hair. /ˈɔːbən/ [red-brown]
Fair and dark can be used for hair, complexion or skin. Some people like getting a tan in summer [exposing their skin to the sun so that it goes darker], although the risks of getting sunburnt are well known.

Height and build
Fat may sound impolite. Instead we can say that someone is rather plump or stout, or a bit overweight. If someone is broad and solid, we can say they are stocky. A person with good muscles can be well-built or muscular. [generally said about men]
Someone who is very fat can be described as obese /əʊˈbiːs/, especially when talking in a medical context. Someone who is thin can be described as slim [positive] or skinny [negative]. If someone has a nice figure, they have an attractive shape. [generally said about women]

General appearance
She’s a very smart and elegant woman, always well-dressed; her husband is quite the opposite, very scruffy and untidy-looking / messy-looking.
Chloe looked stunning in her red dress. [very attractive]
He’s very good-looking, but his friend’s rather unattractive. [opp attractive]
Her eyes are her best feature. [the most attractive part of her face]
Do you think beautiful women are always attracted to handsome men? I don’t. I think personality matters most.
First impressions are always important. [your first reaction to someone]

Describing people: personality
Intellectual ability:

Attitudes towards life
Amal is pessimistic while Nia is optimistic – he always expects the worst to happen while she looks on the bright side.
It is strange that one of the twins is so extroverted while the other is so introverted – Ben loves being the focus of attention while Jake prefers to be alone with his thoughts.
I feel very tense (or wound up / stressed out) after a very busy day at work but, after a hot bath, I’ll soon feel relaxed.
Eva is very sensible – she’d never do anything stupid. In other words, she’s very practical and down-to-earth.
Roberto is very sensitive – he gets very upset (or worked-up), if he feels people are criticising him.

Attitude towards other people

One person’s meat is another person’s poison
Some characteristics can be either positive or negative depending on your point of view. The words in the right-hand column mean roughly the same as the words in the left-hand column except that they have negative rather than positive connotations.