How to Describe People in English: Advanced Vocabulary Lesson
I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Let's talk about describing people.
Today, I'm going to help you learn 82 expressions for describing people.
There are three different ways to describe people.
One of them is to describe their appearance.
The second way is to describe their personality or character.
The third way is to describe their actions or hobbies.
Today, we're going to specifically focus on how to describe someone's or maybe your personality
Have you ever taken a personality test?
These kind of tests try to tell you something new about your character or maybe put you
Personally, I hate almost every personality test.
Why do I need a test to tell me about my personality?
I already know my personality.
You probably learned a lot about me just from that statement.
I don't need someone else to tell me about my personality.
Having said that, sometimes personality tests can be really helpful for expanding your vocabulary
so that you can accurately describe people.
Maybe you just got a new job and you want to tell your husband about your boss.
You want to explain your boss' character or maybe how your boss looks or some things that
your boss does or maybe you're on a first date with someone and you want to tell them
the wonderful things about your personality.
You need to describe yourself.
In this lesson, I'm going to give you the vocabulary to accurately describe other people
Today, I want to ask you six questions to learn more about your personality.
The goal is to choose some of these nouns and adjectives and create a sentence or maybe
a couple of sentences describing yourself.
If you feel like this is too personal, you can kind of create a list for someone else
At the end of this lesson, I have some extra special material.
You're going to see a conversation with five native English speakers where we try to describe
Hopefully, this will help to also expand your vocabulary, but you'll have to wait until
Let's get started with the first question on this personality test.
Personality test question number one.
Are your travel plans generally organized?
What about your home and office?
Think about this for a moment.
Tidy.
Think about this for three seconds.
Let's say you decided to say yes.
My travel plans are generally organized.
My home and office are pretty tidy.
Some great adjectives we can use to describe you.
Here, we're talking about you're life.
A Type is compared to B Type, which we'll talk about in just a moment.
A Type means that you are quite orderly.
There is a place for everything in your life.
You might also a qualifier to some of these expressions.
Here, we're lessening it a little bit.
Okay.
Most of us are kind of in the middle of a lot of these categories, so it's good to use
You might also say if you said yes to this that your travel plans are generally organized,
Doer.
You don't just think about them and wait for something to happen.
Or you might say simply I'm clean.
If you said no to this, no, my travel plans are not orderly.
My home and office, they are a wreck.
Well, what are some adjectives we can use to describe you?
You might be spontaneous or creative.
What if you are not A Type, you are B Type?
B Type means that you don't always have things orderly.
Maybe you tend to be slower at doing things.
Usually, B Type people might be a little more of the creative, spontaneous type.
That's why you're in this list.
Then, we have some negative words that we can use to describe these people as well.
Here, we can imagine in your head things are not orderly.
If you say to someone you are scatterbrained, it is not nice.
You could say it about yourself.
But, you don't want to say that about someone else.
During today's lesson for these words that are definitely rude to say to someone else,
I put a little star beside it so that you know I should probably be careful saying this
to other people because these are always negative.
The final thing you might say if you said no to this question is I'm not clean.
Just things are not organized.
Did you write down some words that relate to your personality?
Let's go on to the personality test question number two.
Is it easy to stay relaxed even when you have pressure?
Do small events not change how you feel about the rest of the day?
Maybe a small negative thing happens and how cares.
You can just easily forget about it.
Yes, I can easily stay relaxed even when there's pressure.
Yes, I can easily forget about little annoyances during the day.
Or no, it's hard for me to feel relaxed even when there's pressure.
Think about this for you and let's talk about some words in three, two, one.
It's easy for me to feel relaxed even when there's pressure.
Yeah.
If there's small annoying things that happen during the day, it doesn't bother me.
What are some words we can use to describe you?
We talked about this word in a previous lesson where Dan and I talked about our relationship,
These are all things that you might use to describe you if you said yeah, I can easily
stay relaxed even when there's pressure.
What about if you said no to this question?
What if you said no, I don't easily feel relaxed.
What are some words we can use to describe you?
This means that things affect you easily.
It's not always a negative thing.
Of course, it depends no the situation.
If you're applying for a high stress job, you don't want to say I'm sensitive.
It probably means you're not a good fit for the position, but this could be just to describe
Or maybe you might say I'm emotional.
Your emotions play a big part in your life.
Another way to say emotional is moody.
Moody is always a negative thing.
This means you're in a good mood.
You're in a bad mood and you're swinging between those moods and there's no rhyme or reason.
That means there's no predictability.
One day or one moment you feel like this and the next day or the next moment you feel like
this.
This is stronger than emotional.
This is much more negative than emotional, so don't tell someone you're moody.
Especially if they are moody, it won't go well.
Do you know what the opposite of optimistic is?
Pessimistic means that the glass is half empty.
This is an expression that means you always see maybe the negative side or what if this
You're always asking what if in kind of that negative way.
Of course, it's good to balance being optimistic and pessimistic, but these are the two extremes.
The next five words mean something very similar and they're all negative.
I don't recommend telling someone else that they are these things.
Of course, you can say them about yourself if you would like.
Tight, we can kind of imagine something inside of you is maybe twisted or tight and inside
of you, you don't feel relaxed.
You're uptight or maybe you're anxious.
You can say I'm anxious and that describes your personality, but you might just be anxious
I'm anxious about my exam tomorrow.
Okay.
Maybe in general, you're not an anxious person, but you're anxious about that specific activity.
That's not really describing your personality.
No, it's just one specific thing or you might be high strung.
High strung has that same feeling of uptight, anxious, high strung.
That means that she worries a lot.
You are uptight and a lot of things bother you.
Let's go on to personality test question number three.
There's actually three questions in one here.
They are is it difficult to introduce yourself to new people?
Do you feel tired after you spend time with a group of people?
Is a good book or a good movie more interesting than a social event?
Think about those questions for a moment.
Is it difficult to introduce yourself to new people?
How do you feel when you get together with a group of people?
Think about that for a moment.
Let's imagine that you said yeah, it's difficult to introduce myself to people.
I think that when I get together with a group of people, I feel so tired.
I would rather read a good book or watch a movie than go to a social event.
If you said yes to this, let's talk about some adjectives that can describe you.
Or just simply I prefer small groups.
I know some people are like this.
They would rather get together with just one other person or maybe two or three other people,
What about if you said no, I feel energetic when I get together with a group of people.
I would rather go to a social outing.
It's no problem to introduce myself to new people.
What are some words we can use to describe you?
Now for this expression, it's probably better that someone else says this about you just
because it's maybe not so humble if you say I'm the life of the party.
It means that everybody loves me.
It's probably better if your friend said "Yeah, Vanessa, she's the life of the party," instead
But, this might be an expression you can use to talk about someone like this.
Or you might be the opposite of introverted, extroverted.
You are at ease in social situations.
This word initiative is a beautiful word.
We can imagine that when there are are two people maybe in a gathering and they both
are kind of looking at each other, but they don't really want to start a conversation,
the person who starts the conversation, that person takes initiative.
If you have no problem introducing yourself to other people or maybe asking questions
at a store, you take initiative.
Let's go on to question number four of this personality test.
Do you often get lost in thought and kind of forget your surroundings?
Do you often think about the meaning of life?
Things are going on in your head and you're thinking about those things not the things
Do you often think about the meaning of life?
Let's imagine that you said yeah, I do often kind of get lost in thought.
Yeah, I do think about the meaning of life often.
What are some words we use to describe you?
Now, this is an expression kind of like I'm the life of the party that it's not so humble.
If someone is deep, this is a compliment.
It means that they have a lot of wisdom.
It's probably better for you to say it about someone else.
I really like talking to my cousin.
He has such interesting thoughts.
Instead of saying it about yourself.
You may also say I care about finding truth.
Or you might be the kind of person who is critical.
If someone tells me something, I often question it.
On the negative side, you might say cynical.
Cynical is always a negative word and that just means that yes that person asks questions,
They're not just asking questions, but they're always doubting.
There's no way that that's true.
If you often get lost in thought, you might say I'm a dreamer.
They're not things that you want to say in a job interview, but they're not necessarily
bad, so you can say them to your friends or say them about yourself.
If you want to say this in a negative way, you could say I'm a million miles away or
Then if you want to be really negative, you could say I'm an airhead.
We can imagine your head is filled with nothing but air.
I'm often lost in thought and I forget the things around me.
This is a similar category as someone who often thinks about things, but it's quite
If you're deep, your head is filled with a lot of thoughts.
But then on the negative side, you might say airhead for having no thoughts.
Your often lost in your own world.
You're often in your head, but you're not thinking about anything.
What if you said no, I'm not often lost in thought.
I don't really think about the meaning of life that often.
No, why would I care what the meaning of life is?
What would you say on the other side?
You don't often get lost in your thoughts because you're looking around.
You are alert to the things going on around you.
Maybe people who are lost in thought, they're not thinking about the physical details around
them.
They don't realize there's a cup over there, my friend just walked by.
If you are alert, you're noticing those things.
You might also I'm detail-oriented.
You notice lots of little details or you might say I'm astute.
These are great things for a job interview.
This means that you will not forget little things because you are organized.
You are able to keep track of physical details.
Similar to alert, you might say aware.
This is quite the opposite of somebody who's thinking about the meaning of life.
Well, if I think about the meaning of life, I'm never going to really find out, so why
If you think, you might be a realist or you might just be practical.
Practical and a realist are both quite similar.
You're not going to waste your time if you know that something won't be profitable or
I don't think it's really helpful to contemplate the meaning of life.
This might be something you can use to describe you.
Let's go on to the next question.
Personality test question number five.
When you want something, do you often not change your mind?
When you want something, do you often not change your mind?
You don't change your mind or I'll say I change my mind.
Well, it's not so serious for me.
Let's imagine that you said yes, it is true for me.
When I want something, I don't often change my mind.
What are some words we can use to describe you?
We could say you are diligent.
I'm going to become fluid in English.
I'm going to feel more confident in English and I will be diligent.
You want something and you are not going to be distracted.
These are positive expressions.
They're great for job interviews.
They're great general personality traits.
There are some negative ways to describe this as well though.
We have a lovely idiom, stubborn as a mule.
Or we might say you are headstrong.
Headstrong, this means stubborn.
When you want something, you often refuse to think about other options.
I'm not going to think about other things.
Adamant, this means that you stick with your opinion.
Let's imagine that you're a teenager and your mom says "I heard that you were drinking beer
with some friends behind the school."
You say "No, Mom, I wasn't doing that.
I don't know who you were talking with, but it wasn't me behind the school doing that."
She says "Well, I heard from this person that you were doing it."
You are adamant that that person was not you.
You are adamant about something.
This means that you refuse to change your story about something.
You also might be opinionated.
You have opinions and you're not really afraid to share them.
This isn't necessarily a negative thing to be opinionated.
Of course if you are opinionated, if you have strong opinions, especially if these are opinions
that are not shared with a lot of other people, it's great to be careful about how you present
them, about how you share them with other people so that they don't think that you are
Pushy is always a negative thing.
If you are opinionated, you need to talk about it in a specific way so that you don't become
pushy, pushing your opinions on people.
This is similar to adamant, but it's in a negative way.
"I wasn't drinking behind the school.
You are persistently keeping with the same opinion.
Or maybe you have a three-year-old and that three-year-old is asking for candy.
That three-year-old is persistent.
They are wanting it and they're telling you again and again and again.
You might hear the word bossy.
This is similar to persistent.
Adamant, you're telling someone "You should do this.
Like a boss, but usually if you're a good boss, you don't act like that.
But, we use the term bossy for people who have an opinion and they're not really to
change it in this negative way.
What if you said the opposite thing to this question?
What if you said actually sometimes I do change my mind.
I don't always stick with exactly what I say I want every single time.
What are some other words we can use?
These are all positive things, but what if we take this to an extreme?
This means that you never stand up for yourself.
To stand up for yourself means that you have something you want and you never tell other
You are submissive, maybe too submissive.
Or we can use a great expression I often get walked on.
If you have an opinion and you always change it depending on what other people want, we
can imagine that you are like a doormat.
This is the thing that you walk on to enter a house.
People are always walking on you.
Your desires, your needs often get forgotten because you don't stand up for yourself.
You could say that about someone else.
Yeah, he often gets walked on because he doesn't feel comfortable standing up for what he wants.
He doesn't feel comfortable pushing what he wants, so he just gets walked on.
Let's go to the next question.
This is our final personality test question.
When people come over to your house, when guest come to your house, do they feel comfortable?
Do you go above and beyond what is necessary to take care of them?
Maybe it's necessary to give them a glass of water.
When a guest comes to your house, you say "Sit on the couch.
But maybe you go above and beyond.
You do more than that so that your guests feel comfortable.
Do your guests feel comfortable?
Do you do more than is necessary?
Think about that for a moment.
Is it true or not true for you?
Let's say that this is true for you, that you make your guests feel comfortable and
you do more than is necessary.
Let's talk about a lot of adjectives that we could use to describe you.
You are hospitable, nice, friendly.
If you come from France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, these romantic language countries
do not ... Warning, warning, warning.
You do not say he is sympathetic.
This does not mean nice in English.
This a false friend and I hear a lot of people say this.
Instead, in English, we do have the word sympathetic.
This means that maybe your brother lost his job and when you go over to his house, you
bring him some flowers and you bring him a meal and you sit down and talk with him.
You talk about that difficult hard time in his life because you are sympathetic to his
We usually have a difficult situation happening and you didn't personally experience that
difficult thing, but you feel his difficulty.
Here, we're using it in a completely difference sense than friendly.
Friendly just means you're nice.
But if someone has a difficult situation, you are sympathetic to their problem.
You understand I think my brother is really sad right now.
He's probably worried about the future.
You are understanding his difficult times.
I hope I explained this word sympathetic so that you do not use it and say "Vanessa, you're
No, no, no, no, no, don't use that.
What are some other words we can use?
You could say I'm compassionate.
This means you give maybe your time or your money to other people.
This means that people feel this warm feeling when they're with you.
They feel like you're such a friendly person.
Down to earth is an expression that we used to mean you are relatable.
People feel like your life is not so different from theirs.
You often hear this word described with celebrities.
Celebrities, movie stars, they have lives that are much different than our own, so they
seem kind of untouchable, so different, but maybe there is one celebrity who relates to
the problems of normal people.
Someone might say yeah, she's really down to earth.
Or you might say she's sincere.
She's dependable or I'm dependable.
Your friends know that they can depend on you.
I imagine that you probably didn't say no to this about yourself, but you probably know
Let's talk about the opposite.
Someone who is maybe not so generous, not so considerate or so friendly.
Let's talk about the opposite.
Maybe you know someone who is unpleasant.
This is a little bit of a nicer way to say they're so annoying.
They're such a terrible person.
You could just say yeah, he's kind of unpleasant.
I don't really like working with him.
Or someone might because selfish.
They don't like to go above and beyond.
Or maybe you know someone who is self centered.
The world revolves around their life.
Their self is the center of the universe.
How did you answer all of these six personality test questions?
I hope you wrote down some adjectives that you can use to describe yourself.
Write that sentence down in the comments.
But before we go, I'd like to share some extra material with today.
You're going to see five native speakers.
They are three friends, plus my husband, plus me.
We are attempting to describe each other.
I sat down with each of my friends individually and asked "How would you describe this person?
How would you describe that person?"
I didn't tell them specifically to describe their personality or their character, but
you'll see that a lot of these people, they did describe their physical appearance a little
bit.
But, most of these descriptions had to do with their personality or character.
You're going to hear some of the words that we just talked about and maybe you'll hear
Let's start with my friend Liz.
You're going to meet Liz, Heather, Lauren, and Dan.
They're going to be describing each other.
Let's see what everyone has to say about Liz.
I'm Liz. Heather: Gosh, Liz is witty and sarcastic
Heather: She's super inquisitive and very literate.
I’d say that’s very good description of her.
That's something that I first recognized about Liz is she's really inquisitive.
Heather: She's curious about life.
Yeah.
I'd say she's adventurous for some things, like travel or things like that.
Lauren: Liz is very sarcastic and smart, quick witted.
She's funny and she has nice pretty long brown hair.
Dan: I would describe Liz as very curious.
Out of many people I know, not many people will ask you questions a lot.
When Liz asks you a question, she'll ask more and more questions, which I'm not hating on.
Whenever she has an opinion, she usually makes it very clear.
She's also very friendly though, so the assertiveness doesn't get in the way of her friendliness.
Her friendliness shines through.
Vanessa: You just heard some amazing adjectives to describe the wonderful person of Liz.
Let's go on to the second person.
You're going to meet Heather and let's see how everyone describes Heather.
Liz: Heather is a short little person and she has brown hair and amazing freckles and
Vanessa: Those are all true things.
Lauren: Heather is short like me and she's kind of got some ... She's dry humored, so
very subtle, also very smart, and well traveled.
She's live in lots of different places.
Yet when you get to know her, she's very fun loving.
She likes Harry Potter and Star Wars and stuff like that.
Yeah, she's very fun and if you get together with her at a party, you're going to have
Vanessa: I hope you enjoyed those adjectives to describe Heather.
How does everyone describe Lauren?
Liz: Lauren is also a short little person.
She's got sort of blondish brown hair, sort of a darker shade of blond.
She to me is very businesslike and she likes to tell stories with a lot of detail, which
Heather: Lauren is short, with short hair, glasses, and I think she's a geek.
Vanessa: Could you explain what you mean by geek?
A little bit about her interests.
She's, like Liz, curious about different knowledge and stuff.
She loves Star Wars, Harry Potter.
She's definitely a movie buff.
She can remember almost everything.
All these weird random details.
Vanessa: Her mind is like steel trap.
Vanessa: She knows everything.
I think she's also a very loyal friend and very caring.
I've been friends with her for 10 years and I feel like she is that kind of person.
Heather: She makes an effort in her relationships, I think.
Lauren is very loyal, I would say.
When she's your friend, she's your friend for life.
She'll remember you and she's very detail-oriented.
She'll remember all the details of your relationship.
I don't mean this in a bad way.
I just mean there's always somebody in your life who gives all those details about your
life.
She also knows a lot about from my perspective, a lot about pop culture.
She's always filing me in on the details and maybe I understand something that she also
understands and we can have a funny conversation about that.
Usually, Vanessa doesn't understand.
I don't much about pop culture, so Lauren is my window into this world.
She allows me to learn that stuff.
I hope you learn some great words with those explanations.
Let's go on to my husband, Dan, and see what everyone else has to say about Dan.
Dan is this tall, skinny ginger.
He's got very great amazing red hair.
He always has a lot of energy.
I think he's always like "I'm Dan."
Vanessa: He does have a lot of energy.
Liz: He, I feel like, has a lot of strong opinions about things, which I really like.
He's married to you and has a baby.
Liz: I think he's very relaxed in some ways, but also cares about details in other ways.
Which is kind of hard to describe, but it's true.
Heather: Dan is a tall, skinny redhead.
Vanessa: That is the first thing Liz said, too.
Heather: I think he is very creative.
I would probably describe him as adventurous, not afraid to take risks, inquisitive, opinionated.
I think he has opinions and he's set in his way, but I think he's also open for discussion.
Vanessa: Other people said that too.
Dan.
Lauren: Dan is thin and he has red hair, very red hair.
He can be kind of loud and enthusiastic.
Lauren: He's very intelligent too and adventurous.
He's into lots of different things and learning.
Vanessa: Those were some great adjectives to describe Dan.
Oops, I forgot to say that my friends are also going to describe me.
That was my first word for you.
Not just because you're in the room, but because you are just delightful.
Liz: You have effervescent personality.
I feel like you're very uplifting for other people.
You bring a lot of joy to people.
I feel like you always seem like you have it together.
That's definitely my most overarching impression of you is you have it together.
You're excellent with hospitality.
Liz: Obviously we share a love of reading, so I know that you're very well read.
I like that you get very interested in specific topics.
Vanessa: Whenever the topic ... Liz: Whenever we read a book, she's like,
I went and did research and I found this out and this and this.
Vanessa: I think that's quite true that when I'm interested in something, I'm really interested.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for your kind words.
Vanessa: Tell me what you think.
Heather: I think you're probably one of the kindest people I've ever met.
I think you're just very genuinely nice.
Vanessa: You know when you're not around, Heather, I'm evil.
Heather: I think you're also very inquisitive and very literate.
Heather: I think you are very curious about the world and people like this.
Heather: I think where you and Dan fit well together he seems super creative, comes up
with ideas, but you're very good at implementing ideas.
I think you're good at keeping people on task.
Heather: I think you need that.
You run your own business, so I think that is a good quality.
Heather: I think you are very good at having fun, but also getting the work done.
Vanessa: Being serious when I need to be serious.
Lauren: Vanessa is kind and warm and likes to learn as well, well traveled also, and
you have pretty brown hair too.
Dan: Number on adjective is wonderful.
Dan: Vanessa is probably the nicest person on Earth.
By nicest, I mean almost just like sincere.
She's always very sincere, very caring, very curious, always sincerely interested in most
people's topics, like I'll hear even a boring person say something and she'll be like "Oh
well, very interesting."
I don't think she's making it up either.
I think she's seriously very interested.
Everyone has something interesting if you listen close enough.
She's also very fun, very fun loving.
Obviously, I like Vanessa a lot because I decided to marry her.
Vanessa: I'm glad you like me a lot.
Dan: We get along very well and I like yeah about 99% of Vanessa.
I hope you've enjoyed today's long, intense, English vocabulary lesson.
Now, I have a challenge for you.
In the comments below this video, I want you to try to write a sentence or two or three
describing yourself or maybe describing someone else in your life.
Try to fill it with these wonderful adjectives, some of these are nouns as well, to describe
It's a great way to remember them.
Try to ingrain them in your memory.
Thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new
lesson here on my YouTube channel.
Bye.
The next step is to download my free e-book Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
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