Unit6 Describing people

General English:8

Unit6 Describing people

Vocabulary Describing people

Words and phrases to describe people

Let's start with some positive ways to describe people.

He's a funny guy.

He's really fun to be with.

He's very easy to talk to.	

Now let's look at a few negative ways.

She can come across as a bit cold sometimes.

He's a bit hard to read.

He can be quite aggressive.

He can be aggressive sometimes.
I think she's hard to read.

He can come across as cold sometimes.

My boss is easy to talk to.

Grammar Add to descriptions

You can use adverbs like really and very to intensify a positive description of someone.

He's really fun to be with.

He's very easy to talk to.

Words like really, very, so and pretty can also be used in negative descriptions.

She's pretty aggressive.

He's really hard to read.

Some words, like a little, a bit, rather and quite often appear with negative words, and their purpose is to soften the criticism.

She's quite quiet.	

He's rather hard to read.

Grammar Multipart verbs

Using multipart verbs to describe people

Multipart verbs are common in spoken and informal English.
They're made by taking a verb and adding a small word like to, on, in or at,
which changes the verb's meaning. Notice the difference to makes in these examples.

They warmed the food.	

They warmed to him.	

You can often work out the meaning of multipart verbs by the context they appear in.
In this example, you see evidence that warm to is a positive action,
and it involves the changing relationship between people.

Lars is a funny guy. A little quiet in the beginning, 
but when he warms to people, he's really fun to be with.


We're good friends. I get in on at well with her.
I didn't like him at first, but I warmed to for at him.
She comes around along across as quite shy, but she's really nice.
He puts people on to off by being so rude and aggressive.
I don't go out with colleagues much. I keep for to at myself.


She's very quiet and mostly keeps to herself.

He puts people off when he's so aggressive.

Final Task Describing people