By the end of this lesson you'll be able to ask what someone is like, describe their height, hair and eyes, and say something about their personality.
Two verbs do the work
Describing a person in French takes two verbs you already know. Use être for what someone is: tall, funny, shy. Use avoir for what someone has: blue eyes, long hair.
To ask for a description, you need just one short question.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Il est comment ? / Elle est comment ? | ee-leh koh-MAHN / eh-leh koh-MAHN | What's he like? / What's she like?A little more careful: Comment est-il ? / Comment est-elle ? |
Height
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| grand / grande | grahn / grahnd | tall (man / woman) |
| petit / petite | puh-TEE / puh-TEET | short, small (man / woman) |
| de taille moyenne | duh tah-y mwah-YEN | of medium heightStays the same for men and women. |
With words like these, a woman's form usually adds an -e in writing, and you can often hear the difference, because the final consonant is pronounced: grande, petite. For now, learn both forms as a pair. The lesson on adjective agreement explains the rules.
Thomas est grand, mais Inès est petite.
Thomas is tall, but Inès is short.
Clara est de taille moyenne.
Clara is of medium height.
Hair
For hair, French uses avoir and les, followed by cheveux and then the description.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| les cheveux | lay shuh-VUH | hairAlways plural when you mean the hair on someone's head. |
| bruns | bruhn | dark brown (hair) |
| blonds | blohn | blond |
| noirs | nwahr | black |
| gris | gree | grey |
| roux | roo | red, ginger (hair) |
| courts | koor | short (hair) |
| longs | lohn | long |
All these words are shown with their plural ending because cheveux is plural. You don't need any other form to describe hair, and the words come after cheveux, unlike in English. You can use two at once by joining them with et: les cheveux longs et noirs, or simply les cheveux noirs et longs.
Karim a les cheveux noirs et courts.
Karim has short black hair.
If you want to talk about the person instead, you can use être: Elle est blonde, Il est brun. That's the same idea as "she's a blonde" in English, with the form matching the person.
Eyes
Eyes work exactly the same way.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| les yeux | lay-ZYUH | eyes |
| bleus | bluh | blue |
| verts | vehr | green |
| marron | mah-ROHN | brown (eyes)Never changes: les yeux marron. |
Léa a les yeux verts.
Léa has green eyes.
Marron is the odd one out. It's the name of a brown nut (a chestnut), and it never takes a plural ending.
Personality
For character, go back to être. Some words change for a woman, and some don't. If a word already ends in -e, like drôle, timide and calme, it's the same for everyone. Sympa doesn't change either.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| sympa | san-PAH | nice, friendlySame for men and women. |
| gentil / gentille | zhahn-TEE / zhahn-TEE-y | kind (man / woman) |
| drôle | drohl | funny |
| timide | tee-MEED | shy |
| calme | kahlm | calm, quiet |
| intelligent / intelligente | an-teh-lee-ZHAHN / an-teh-lee-ZHAHNT | intelligent (man / woman) |
| sérieux / sérieuse | say-RYUH / say-RYUHZ | serious, reliable (man / woman) |
These three small words make your descriptions more exact. They go right before the describing word.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| très | treh | very |
| assez | ah-SAY | quite, fairly |
| un peu | uhn PUH | a little |
Hugo est un peu timide.
Hugo is a little shy.
Nora est très drôle et assez sérieuse.
Nora is very funny and quite reliable.
Putting it together
Here's a complete description of someone. Notice how être and avoir take turns.
- Elle est comment, Sophie ? (What's Sophie like?)
- Elle est grande. Elle a les cheveux roux et les yeux bleus. (She's tall. She has red hair and blue eyes.)
- Elle est sympa ? (Is she nice?)
- Oui, très sympa, et très gentille ! (Yes, very nice, and very kind!)
What's next
Next, the lesson on adjective agreement explains why these describing words change their endings, and where they go in a sentence. You can also combine what you've learned here with the lesson on mon, ma and mes to describe people you know. Then you'll describe your own family in the review of this unit.