DESCRIBING APPEARANCE ENGLISH VOCABULARY IN USE PRE INTERMEDIATE

 

ENGLISH VOCABULARY IN USE PRE INTERMEDIATE UNIT 10 DESCRIBING APPEARANCE

 

A Describing beauty Your appearance is the way you look, and we sometimes use different words to talk about beauty in men and women. WOMEN can be attractive or good-looking [nice to look at], and we often use pretty [attractive] to describe a girl. We use beautiful or gorgeous for women who are very attractive. MEN can be attractive and good-looking, but also handsome. If men are very attractive, we can say they are gorgeous or very good-looking, but not usually beautiful. Liam has become quite handsome.               Bella looks gorgeous in that dress. Olivia was very pretty when she was younger.          They’re a very good-looking couple. Language help   The opposite of beautiful is ugly, but it is not very polite to describe someone as ugly; ordinary [not special or different] is more polite. It also isn’t polite to say that someone is fat; overweight is more polite. B Size We can talk about a person’s height [how tall or short they are] and their weight [how heavy they are], e.g. I’m roughly [about; syn approximately] one metre eighty (tall), and I weigh just under eighty kilograms. If someone is not tall or short, you can describe them as medium height. If a person is very similar to most other people in height and weight, you can say they are average. A How tall is Hannah? B Medium height, I’d say. A Is Marco quite big? B No, about average. C Hair Common mistakes   Remember that ‘hair’ is uncountable, e.g. She’s got straight hair. (NOT She’s got straight hairs.) Also: She’s got long black hair. (NOT She’s got a long black hair.) D Talking about someone’s appearance A: What does Sophia’s boyfriend look like? [Can you describe his appearance?] B: He’s blond, and quite good-looking. A: Is he tall? B: Er, tallish [quite tall], but he’s got broad shoulders [wide; opp narrow]. He looks very athletic [strong, healthy and often good at sports]. I think he does a lot of sport. A: Is he quite smart [clean, tidy and stylish]? B: Yeah, he dresses quite well [the clothes he wears are quite nice].   Language help   We can use the suffix -ish at the end of some adjectives to mean ‘quite’, e.g. She’s got longish hair, and at the end of some numbers to mean ‘more or less’, e.g. He’s twentyish.   EXERCISES 10.1 Complete the sentences. 1 She’s got straight ________hair ________. 2 Isabella is very good- ______________. 3 Beata’s got blonde ______________. 4 Her brother’s got very broad ______________. 5 That’s a nice suit: Jack’s very ______________ today. 6 I would say he was medium ______________. 7 Charlotte’s hair is fair but her brother’s is quite ______________. 10.2 Find six more pairs of words in the box. Why are they pairs? Attractive and good- looking are similar in meaning. __________________________________________________             10.3 Complete the dialogues using words that are similar to the underlined words. 1 A: She’s good-looking. B: Yes, very ______ attractive_________. 2 A: María José looked beautiful last night. B: Yes, absolutely_________________________. 3 A: Her boyfriend’s quite good-looking. B: Yes, he is rather ______________________. 4 A: Andreas looks very strong and healthy. B: Yes, I think he’s very ______________________________. 10.4

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