Describing things and people

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1. Describing things

Sometimes you may be asked to describe something, what it looks like, and it’s function or purpose. For example, you may to talking to a person not up on the latest technological devises or telling someone about the newest time saving kitchen gadget.

When you are describing objects you use adjectives, (words that describe nouns) such as the size, color, shape, material made from, thickness, texture, etc. Look at the expressions below that can be used when asking for descriptions of things.

• Size

Questions	Answers
How big is your house? What size are your shoes? What size of pants do you need?	It’s very big. They are medium I wear a 32 inch waist and a 34 inch length.

• Colors

Questions	Answers
What color is your shirt? What color are your eyes?	It’s blue. They’re black.

• Shapes

Questions	Answers
What shapes is the earth? What shape are the tiles?	It’s round. They’re square.

• Materials

Questions	Answers
What is a spanner made of? What are your shoes made of?	It’s made of steel. They’re made of leather.

• Qualities

Questions	Answers
What’s the quality of your watch? What’s the quality of this picture?	It’s good. It’s bad.

2. Describing People

When you want to know what someone looks you, you are going to ask for a description. Descriptions can be very simple (he’s ugly) or very descriptive and detailed. (She’s 5 feet 4 inches tall, with straight flaming red shoulder length hair, sparkling dark green eyes, a dazzling pearly white smile, with a cute dimple on her left cheek, and lightly tanned facial skin as smooth as a baby’s behind, with the body like Marilynn Monroe).

When asking for descriptions there are a number of expressions that can be used. Look at the examples.

• Physical appearance

Questions	Answers
What does your girl friend look like? What does he look like?	She’s very beautiful, with dark brown eyes and flaming red hair. He's about 170 centimeters high. His hair is curly and he has white skin

• Personality

Questions	Answers
What’s she like? What kind of boss do you have? What kind of personality do you look for in a spouse? How’s your co-worker?	She’s very friendly, but shy. He’s very intelligent, but very demanding and somewhat of a perfectionists. Someone who is assertive, but not aggressive; outgoing, but not dominating; confident, but not insecure. She’s fairly helpful and considerate, but extremely opinionated.

• Profession

Questions	Answers
What’s your job? What’s your profession? What’s your occupation? What are you? What do you do? What’s her job? What’s her profession? What’s her occupation? What is she? What does she do? What are their jobs? What are their professions? What are their occupations? What are they? What do they do?	I am a teacher She’s a secretary They’re farmers.

• Nationalities

Questions	Answers
Where are you from? Where do you come from? What nationality are you? What is your nationality Where’s he from? Where does he come from? What nationality is he? What is his nationality? Where are they from? Where do they come from? What nationality are they? What is their nationality?	I’m from Indonesia. I come from Indonesia. I’m Indonesian. He’s from Vietnam. He comes from Vietnam. He’s Vietnamese. They’re from Iraq. They come from Iraq. They’re Iraqi.