Describe a person in French

In this lesson you will learn how to briefly describe someone; his or her face, body and characters traits. To make it more useful we suggest you to first study the lesson about colors.

Adjectives to describe someone in French

To ask some Francophone about physical appearance, you can use the expression "A quoi ressemble ... ?". And to answer the question you can use the same expression but in the affirmative form "Il ressemble à" and add few adjectives from the table bellow.

Examples:

What does Julien look like? =  De quoi a l`air Julien? / A quoi ressemble-t-il?

He looks like a athlete. = Il a l'air sportif.

He looks old. = Il a l'air vieux.                  

Parts of the face in French

Being able to describe someones parts of the face, can help you to give a more faithful description. In this case we use expression made of verb:

avoir + noun + adjective.

Attention!

Pay attention that in French "hair" has a plural form "les cheveux", also that adjectives need to be agreed in gender and number with the noun they follow.

Examples:

She has a blue eyes. = Elle a les yeux bleus.

He has long curly hair. = Il a les cheveux bouclés longs. / Il a de longs cheveux bouclés.

How to say body parts in French ?

To speak about body parts in French you can apply the same rule as for parts of the face:

"avoir" + noun + adjective.

To enrich your vocabulary you can add a few adjecives such as, long (long), court (short), gros (big)...

Examples:

She has long legs and small arms. = Elle a de longues jambes et des bras courts. 

His face has a oval shape. = Son visage est ovale.

How to say main character traits in French ?

Here you will find a list to describe someone`s character traits in French. You can use the formulation of verb:

"être" + adjective.

Pay attention to formation of adjective masculine and feminine forms! Masculine is only variable in plural. In feminine form you add an -e / -le / -euse.

Examples:

She is kind and generous. = Elle est gentille et généreuse.

Mario is impatient and lazy. = Mario est impatient et paresseux.

• In general speaking about human body or about character traits may seem complicated at first. But the only thing to keep in mind is formulation of expressions with verbs "be" and "have".