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One great way to build your vocabulary and practice your Chinese is describing people. They can be people you know, celebrities you see on TV or in magazines, or even just random people on the street. Today we’ll look at how to describe someone’s appearance in Chinese.
To get started, let’s learn how to ask the question, “What does he/she look like?”
Here are some common words that you’ll often hear/use when describing someone’s appearance:
For all of these words, you can simply add them after “he/she.” For emphasis, you can add the word for very (很 – hěn). Here are a few examples:
Generally speaking, it’s rude to call someone short or fat (at least to their face). Rather than saying “He is short,” you could say “He is not tall” (他个子不高 – tā gè zi bù gāo). Not surprisingly, you shouldn’t call a woman “fat.” Try using a word like “plump” (丰满 – fēng mǎn) instead.
Next up are some useful words for describing eyes (眼睛 – yǎn jīng) and skin color (肤色 – fū sè):
For all of these, you can just add them to “He/she has…” (他/她有… – tā/tā yǒu).
Now let’s learn how to describe someone’s hair (头发 – tóu fǎ). Here are some useful words:
When it comes to the length/style, just add the word after “His/her hair is…” (他/她头发… – tā de/tā de tóu fǎ…):
Note that in these examples you don’t need the particle 的 or 是.
There are two different structures you can use to describe someone’s hair color – “He/she has… hair.” (他/她有… 头发 – tā/tā yǒu… tóu fǎ) or “His/her hair is…” (他的/她的头发是… – tā de/tā de tóu fǎ shì):
With all those vocabulary words and grammatical structures at your fingertips, you’re ready to go! Try describing the appearance of three people you know using what you learned in this post. Next time, we’ll learn how to describe someone’s personality.