4. The Body
The first thing to talk about is the body of the person. That means you
describe two things — the person’s height and their body shape/size.
DESCRIBE HEIGHT
When describing someone’s height there are only three ways we can do
it.
We can either say a person is tall, medium-height or short.
So essentially you can say three things to describe someone’s height:
He is tall
She is medium-height/He is average height
He is short
5. Short
Here we might say one of the following:
He is not very tall.
He is a little on the short side.
She is not that tall.
She is kind of petite.
SHORT
Tall
If someone is very tall we might say the
following:
He is a giant
He towers over other people
6. DESCRIBE BUILD
• 1-Big/Small
• 2-Fat/Thin
• Rather than say he is fat, we can say:
• He is a big guy
• He is overweight
• He is kind of big
• He is overweight
• He needs to lose weight
• He is obese
• We can say she is thin or slim
• Muscular , athletic ......
7. DESCRIBE HEAD
• If you say anything about a person’s head it could be
the following:
• He has a really big head
• He has a large head
• He has a big head
• Her head is kind of small
• She has a very small head
• Her head is small for her size
•
8. DESCRIBE HAIR
• Hair can come in many different colours:
• Brown
• Blonde
• Red
• Grey or White
9. DESCRIBE FACE
• After we describe someone’s general appearance in terms of
their body, we then begin to describe their face.
• We can describe a man as handsome or good-looking. A woman we
describe as beautiful or good-looking
• Sometimes people are ugly but it is rude to say this to someone’s face.
• People might use the following terms instead:
• He is not very good-looking
• He is not so handsome
• He is not blessed with good looks
• For someone that is neither good-looking or ugly, we might say
ordinary looking.
•
10. DESCRIBE EYES
She has beautiful eyes
• He has deep-set eyes (this is to describe a person who has
eyes that seem to be deeper in their face)
• She has big eyes
• He has clear eyes
• She is doe-eyed (we use this term to describe someone who
has big, child-like eyes. Someone who is doe-eyes often has
an innocent look about them)
• He has heavy eyes
• She has lidded eyes This is for someone who has heavy
eyelids, maybe they often look tired
11. • Beady-eyed — we use this to talk about someone who
has eyes that make someone look untrustworthy!
• Boss-eyed — if someone has eyes that look like they
are looking at two different things we use this
expression. It is a negative term.
• He has piggy eyes. it means someone had small
eyes
12. DESCRIBE NOSE
• Noses can be big, long or small.
• She has a long nose
• He has a big nose
• She has a small nose
• Sometimes people have a bump in the middle of their
nose. In which case we say: He has a bump in his nose.
13. DESCRIBE MOUTH
• Then we can talk about someone’s mouth.
• Mouths can be big, beautiful, small or wide.
• We often use the word smile to describe
someone’s mouth because we use our mouth to
smile.
• She has a big beautiful smile
14. DESCRIBE EARS
• Ears can be big or small.
• He has big ears
• He has very small ears
• Or the person’s ears might stick out from their head.
• He has sticky-out ears
• His ears stick out
15. Skin
• When talking about the colour of someone’s skin be
careful.
• People can be the following colours:
• White
• Black
• Brown
16. Pay Attention
• If someone has light-coloured skin, we do not say:
He is very white
• We say
• He has pale skin
• She is very pale-skinned
• She has a light complexion
If someone’s skin has a darker skin colour, we do not say
• He is very black
• He has dark skin
• He is very tanned
• He is has a dark complexion
17. DESCRIBE HANDS
• If we describe someone’s hands we might say they are either
big or small.
• He has big hands
• She has small hands
• But some people’s hands are very gentle and they might
have long fingers.
• We can say:
• She has long elegant fingers
• He has an artist’s hands — very soft and gentle
• We can describe the skin of someone’s hands
• She has soft hands
• He has coarse hands like a worker
