This is an All-Ears EnglishPodcast, episode2230.
How should you describe someone's appearance inEnglish?
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Sometimes you need to describe how someonelooks, their bodytype, their hairtype, theirappearance.
Today, get our honest opinions about words you should avoid and words you may want to use inEnglish.
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Hello,Aubrey. How's it goingtoday?
I'mgreat,Lindsay. How areyou?
Excellent. Feeling reallygood.
So do we have a question to start off the episodetoday?
Yes. This was reallyinteresting.
We had a student ask about describing appearanceback.
Said, can you make an episode about adjectives to describe humanappearance?
And this is a little tricky because when kids are learning adjectives or in languageclasses, we keep it verysimple.
But there's actually a lot toit.
What do you use todescribe?
Should you describe things that are more of value like weight andbeauty?
Or are there other things you coulddescribe?
Yes,100%.Exactly. Soespecially,well, certainly in theworkplace, but especially just out in everydaylife, there are certain things that we want to avoid talkingabout.
So today we're going to get intothat.
The idea of describing someone'sappearance.
Yeah.Yes. And this comes up a lot with mychildren.
They will describe someone in a way that if this person overhearsthem, they might beupset.
And so I'll justsay, youknow, we don't need to comment on a person'sbody.
And this goes for adults aswell.
So we're going to get into this aboutlike, what exactly should youdescribe?
Not only are we going to give youadjectives, but it's interesting to thinkabout, and this is very cultural in theUS.
Whatis, youknow, accepted as far as a description of someone'sappearance?
I loveit. And we're going to have a part two of thisepisode.
Aubrey, where will thatbe?
Where can we findthem?Yes.
Onbusiness,English. Should you comment on appearance atwork?
Because this is different at work as opposed to in day to daylife.
Loveit. I loveit. Soguys, hit follow right here in all our English and then go over and hit follow on business English to make sure you don't miss thatone.
Okay. Allright. So this comes from aquestion.
Right, Aubrey fromback.
Exactly. Or a backquestion.
Yes. Andthis, I love the backsentence.
This question because you might need to describe someone oryourself.
If youknow, you need to identify someone that's another person hasn'tmet, this does happen where we're having to describethem.
And sofirst, it's interesting toask, youknow, what should youdescribe?
Yeah,exactly. There are certain things that we're going to show you some things that you can point to in terms of appearances that will get you a more specific description of theperson,basically.
Right. So what would be that firstone,Aubrey?
Yeah. So first is eyecolor.
At least in theUS, you can always describe someone'seyes,right?
Blue,green,brown,hazel, which is sort of abrownish,green, beautifuleyes.
Sometimes people will say baby blues when they're like a verylight, clearblue.
Yeah, forsure. Or you can also sometimes we saidgold.
So like a goldgreen, you can say we can get into some nuances here forsure.
But the basics are theblue, thegreen,brown,right?
Those are thebasics.Okay.
So ofcourse, you can always describe eye color as well as haircolor, someone who has brown hair inEnglish, we would saybrunette.
But we could also saylight,medium, or dark brownhair.
Lovethat. And then youredhead,right?
Or redhair,right? Or redhead or redhair.
You can also saylight,medium, or darkbrown.
So different shades ofbrown,right?
Yes. And the same withblonde.
And then there's likelight,medium, or darkblonde.
Sothere's, and then also bleachblonde,right?
If someone has thatlight,light, whitehair, then this is what we would say forthat.
Right. I loveit.Okay. So hair color and eye color always really easy and simple as a way to describepeople.
And then ofcourse,height.
Abri, what do you think that people value height in theworld?
What do youthink?Well, forme, it's all aboutsports,right?
That's all youare. The better you are at a lot ofsports.
It's very difficult forme.
I'm only five five to playvolleyball.
I was just playing this morning and all of these girls that are five nine or higher have such anadvantage.
So sometimes it's aboutthat.
It's about the physical advantages you have when your taller has caused us to to give it thatvalue.
But somesports, it's actually advantageous to be smaller likegymnastics, forexample, or maybe being ajockey, horse racingjockey, that sort ofthing.
Yeah. There are somesports.
Soanyways, just basically saying shorttall, short or tall are the very broadcategories.
Right,Abri?Exactly. And this is a common mistake because a lot oflanguages, the wordpetite, at least in French meansshort.
But inEnglish, it doesn't really meanthat.
It means like it's verysmall.
And so this would bea, youknow, so don't confuse petite and short inEnglish.
If you mean that they're nottall, you would sayshort.
And I also think we were saying before that weprobably, ifsomeone, if you think that someone is on the shorterside, you mightactually, or just ingeneral, you might actually point tothe, the actualheight,right?
We estimateit. That's probably the way I'm saying they'reshort.
You could say I think she's like fiveone.
Yeah. We go feet and inches inEnglish.
And that's true instead of calling someoneshort, I often will approximate theirheight.
Yeah,exactly. So that just gives you a little bit moredetail, makes what you're saying a little moreinteresting.
What aboutweight,Abri?
Is that something that we should stay awayfrom?
What do wethink? This is reallytricky,right?
We very recently had a great conversation with Jenna from an organization called roses foreverybody.
This was in all her English episode1913.
If you missedit, scroll back and check itout.
It was called fight fat phobia with Jenna from roses foreverybody.
And this was really interesting where she was talking about how the word fat has come to have this negative connotation that it shouldn'thave.
So they're really trying to remove that and reclaim the word fat because it shouldn't come with this negativeconnotation.
So it'sinteresting, butunfortunately, at least in theUS, that very much exists rightnow.
So I would hesitate to call someone fat or evenoverweight.
Infact, we were talking about this weight and beauty are really valuedjudgments.
And sooften, if at allpossible, you could just avoid thesecomments,right?
It's going to be rare that you're going to describe theseaspects.
Maybe if you are like dating someone new and afraid of asking you aboutthem, then you might describe how good looking you think they are or more specific about their physicalattributes, but in mostcases, youwon't.
Yeah. And beauties in the eye of thebeholder,right?
Thereare.Yeah, we all have very different ideas of what isbeautiful.
And that's actuallytrue, even within oneculture, one person could be attractive and the other one not tosomeone.
So, youknow, going straight to the more kind of specific characteristicsof, youknow, eyecolor,hair,height, that kind of thing is justeasier.
Okay.Yes. And ofcourse, you can say if they have glasses ornot,right?
There are some other things we could do to describe someone while avoiding something that might like yousaid, beauties in the eye of thebeholder.
If you're describing even someone you're meeting for a blinddate, you might saylike,oh, I thought they were really goodlooking, but youknow, who knows what anybody else mightthink.
Right.Exactly. I loveit.
Maybe we can do that anotherday.
Go into that topicof, youknow, your opinion on someone's looks and how to talk aboutthat.
That could be interesting for anepisode.
Aubrey. What do youthink?
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Okay, let's go into a roleplay.
We're going to show you guys how to use some of the these things that we've talkedabout.
Are youready?Aubrey? What's happeninghere?
Yeah, you and I are talking about a party that we attended in this roleplay.
I will start usout.Ready?
Yes. Did you meet Jen'scoworker?
He was sonice. I'm notsure.
She brought a fewfriends,right?
Yes, he's the guy with short dark hair and he's reallytall.
I think I know who you're talkingabout.
He hadglasses.Yep, that'shim.
Okay. So you can see how we haveremoved.
We're not talking about whether we think he's goodlooking.
We're not talking about his body at all because imagine if someone were to overhear that conversation or he orto, youknow, it would be reported back to someoneelse.
It is you do risk offending or creating hurtfeelings.
Butthis, if we're describing these just physical characteristics ofhair,eyes, that's verysafe.
You're not going to hurt anyone'sfeelings.
Yeah, we just want to kind of avoid objectifyingpeople,right?
If we go right into thatconversation,oh, he's so goodlooking, it could be kind of kind of feelobjectifying.
So staying a little bit more just straightforward in ourdescription.
Forexample, what did Isay?
Isaid, you said he's the guy with short dark hair and he's reallytall.
He's reallytall,right?
So I'm describing hishair, his height and where you're thinking of a few different people you met trying todistinguish.
This is the first thing I would do is describe maybeeyes,hair,height, what I remember and see if you'relike,oh,yeah, I know who you're talkingabout.
And then we go back to the instance of theparty,right?
This was at aparty, Ithink.
Is thatright? Where we had aparty?
Isaid, did you meet Jen'scoworker?
And you'relike,oh, she brought a fewpeople.
I'm not sure who thatis.
And that is where one of these situations where you would need to describe someone because you're trying to help them know who you're talkingabout.
And then specifically talking about what were theywearing?
Oh, he hadglasses, meaning at thattime, he hadglasses,right?
You're not necessarily saying he wears glasses all the time or saying he had glasses or he was wearingglasses,right?
And I love that you brought up what they're wearing because before I say anything that might be a valuejudgment, I would be more likely to say what they were wearing if I rememberit.
Like he had like a dark blue shirton,right?
If I remember what he'swearing, I might even say that before hair color and eyecolor.
I think that's a lot morerelevant.
Right? Because you don'tnecessarily,honestly, like you don't necessarily notice people's eyecolor.
Idon't, I don't think aboutit.
Oh, we have greeneyes. I wouldn't really think aboutit,right?
And so what they're wearing is just a little moresuperficial.
It's morevisual. It's moreobvious.
We'rememorable. We really are up inthere, like staring into someone'seyes.
Exactly. And that really brings up somethinginteresting.
I remember when I was teachingFrench, it was so all of the conversations sort of felt so created like justunnatural, youknow, because they'relike, when do I ever describe someone's eyecolor?
And I lovethis. We're kind ofsharing.
If you do need to describe someone in thisway, you would be more likely to say what they were wearing if they hadglasses,right?
We want it to be as natural aspossible.
Yeah. And there's a lot of nuance that we could go into anotherday,guys, on how to dothat.
Right? How to remind someone about who was at the party and what they werewearing.
Hit that follow button to get that episode anotherday.
Aubrey, where should we leave our listenerstoday?
Yes, just a good takeaway that sometimes it's not best to comment on appearance or on a person'sbody,right?
We want to thinkabout, youknow, if you need to describesomeone, you want to use words and ideas that will not sound unkind or judgmental or have any kind of valuejudgment.
Yes,100%. I loveit. So that's a great takeaway fortoday.
And it looks like we are done for thisepisode.
Aubrey, I will see you back on the mic verysoon.
Have a goodday.Awesome.
See you nexttime. Takecare.
Bye. Thanks for listening to All EarsEnglish.
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