Describing People, Places, and Things in English

Describing things is where conversations get interesting. Once you can say more than "it's good", you can tell stories, give opinions, and be understood properly.

Describing appearance

Height and build: tall, short, slim, well-built Hair: long, short, straight, curly, blonde, dark Age: young, middle-aged, elderly (politer than "old" for people)

We use have got / have for features and be for general qualities:

• She has long dark hair.
• She is tall.

Describing character

Positive	Negative
friendly	unfriendly
generous	mean
hard-working	lazy
patient	impatient
confident	shy

Note the pattern: many opposites just add un- or im-. But not all — the opposite of generous is mean, not "ungenerous".

Describing places

• Size: tiny, small, big, huge
• Atmosphere: quiet, busy, crowded, lively, peaceful
• Condition: modern, old, clean, dirty
• Opinion: beautiful, ugly, boring, interesting

It's a small, quiet town near the mountains.

Adjective order

When you use two or more adjectives, English has a fixed order. The full rule is long, but this short version covers most real sentences:

opinion → size → age → colour → origin → noun

• ✅ a beautiful little old house
• ❌ an old little beautiful house
• ✅ a lovely big red car

Native speakers don't learn this rule — they just hear it. If you're unsure, remember that opinion comes first and colour comes last.

Making descriptions stronger

Instead of adding very, use a stronger adjective:

Instead of	Say
very big	huge
very small	tiny
very good	excellent
very bad	awful
very tired	exhausted
very pretty	beautiful

Note: you can't say very huge or very excellent — these adjectives are already extreme. Use absolutely instead: absolutely huge.

Try it yourself

The quiz below tests both the vocabulary and the word order.