Describing body shape and type is always an interesting topic for gossip. You either call someone slim or fat, but there are so many different English words to replace them. In this English Speaking Lesson with Michelle you will learn interesting English vocabulary to talk about the body shape that attracts you, choosing the correct English word to be more specific. Use this English vocabulary from this Spoken English lesson to speak fluent English confidently.
You are watching this English lesson on Let’s Talk – Free English lessons. This lesson is a part of our English lesson series ‘English Unplugged’ shot in the beautiful New Zealand. It’s our effort to teach yo English outside the classroom so that you learn English naturally from Native English speakers. Take advantage of this free YouTube resource to learn English quickly and easily. We have more than 1200+ free English learning videos to teach you all aspects of the English language so that you could speak English fluently and confidently and never have to ask the question – How to speak fluent English. Access our huge library of free English speaking lessons covering a range of topics such as – Grammar, English conversation, Tips on How to speak English, How to build vocabulary, learn new words, Communication skills, English sentence practice, Accent Training, American Accent Training & British Accent Training, Difference between British and American English and much more.
Complete Lesson Transcript :-
We all have different body shapes. You can be different, I can be different. But whatever be your body shape, you’ll surely fall somewhere between slim or fat. However, it’s true that the degree of how slim you are or how fat you are might vary. So in this lesson with me Michelle, you are learning different words to talk about how fat or slim you are or maybe some one else is. You’ll also learn how to not be too direct when you’re telling someone that they’re fat or slim. So here we have some amazing words on the board and the first word that we have is Thin. The word thin of course talks about being slim, but is it a positive word or is it a negative word? Well, it’s a negative word. It has a slight negative connotation to it. And if you say, if you tell someone, “you’re too thin..” it might not come across as a very good example of saying that they are slim. So thin means someone with too little flesh or too little fat..Alright! So you could say that, “She’s very pretty but she’s too thin” This means that she’s very beautiful but she’s too thin which means she has very little fat and not very little flesh. The next one that we have is somebody who is very skinny. So obviously you must have guessed it from the word. A skinny person has just skin, you can see the skin and the bones together and you can see that they’re really really thin. So someone who is a bit more thinner than “thin” is a skinny person. Someone who is very thin. There are people who love to be skinny and people you know go on diets, they stop eating for weeks-just to look skinny! However, there are people who do not like to look very skinny and if you are one of them, you may be not liking other people also who look very skinny. So you could say, “I don’t like his looks, he’s too skinny for me”. So you think that that person is too thin. Way too thin for you. Right! So here we have the third one. And the third one we have is scrawny. So scrawny is someone who is even more skinny that skinny. So we are going in that order. More thinner than thin is skinny and more skinnier than skinny is scrawny. So a person who is scrawny, you can see their bones, you can see the shape of their bones. Obviously literally you cannot see their bones! But you can see the shape of their bones because they’re just very thin. So you could see their, the shape of their bones. So you could say that James has always been a scrawny little kid. This means he has always been very very very very thin and you could always see his, the shape of his bones and you could see that he is very thin and he’s still very thin possibly. The next one that we have is gaunt. It gets even more negative with this word. Till here, we are talking about body types, but when we use the word “gaunt”, we are talking about health’s condition. So a gaunt is a very thin face and the thin face is not out of lack of flesh. It’s out of bad health or illness. So when someone has a very slim face or a thin face out of illness, that’s when they look gaunt. Or that’s when they have a gaunt face. Thin out of illness. It’s not good to look gaunt at all. You should be taking care of people if somebody looks gaunt to you, they should see the doctor. So you could say that, “Emma looks gaunt and grey”. This means that she has a very thin face and her looks are very dull and she possibly is suffering from some illness. The next one that we have is emaciated. That’s how we pronounce this word. Ema-shi-a-ted. Right, so this wouldn’t be ema-see-ated, but it would be ema-shi-ated. So emaciated also talks about someone’s health condition. Somebody could look gaunt but you’re emaciated when you’re really very very sick and it’s like being dangerously thin. That’s the word for it. When you’re dangerously thin, you’re suffering from some serious illness, that’s when you look emaciated. Usually there’s a disease called “anorexia”. But who are suffering from anorexia, look emaciated. This means they look under nutrition. Which means they do not, they haven’t had enough food or the food that they are having is not helping them gain any weight. So emaciated is dangerously thin. So if you go to a hospital, you’ll often see a lot of patients emaciated. So you could say, “when i went to the hospital, I saw most of the patients were emaciated or quite a few patients were emaciated”. Right. So with this we come to and end of how to talk about someone being thin in a negative way. Someone being thin in negative way. All of these. Negative. And..these are words that you wouldn’t want to use very directly with somebody, unless they are suffering from a mental..sorry medical condition and you could say that they look emaciated or gaunt. But with these three, you need to be a bit careful. You could come across as a very rude person if you call someone scrawny, skinny or too thin. Right. So there are better ways to tell someone who is really slim and looks great. And that is slim. If somebody is thin, ok, but they are also very attractive, you could say that they look slim. So you could say that “Charlotte looked slim and lovely in the pictures” which means that she looked attractively slim. Or attractively thin. Right. Here we have the next one! Slender. So slender is someone who is very slim, ofcourse. But they’re not just slim. They are very graceful as well. They look very beautiful and very graceful. So you could say, “Emma is small and slender like a dancer” You know dancers are usually slender. You see their body type, they are very fit, they are very slim and not only that-they look very graceful and beautiful. So, gracefully slim. The next one that we have with us is someone who is lean. So this is a word that you would mostly use with men. Someone who is strong and slim at the same time. So you could say that Rugby players are usually quite lean. Strong and slim. Right. Or you could also say that , “Long distance runners usually have a lean body” Which means a fit and a strong body. Right. The next one we have is petite. That’s how we pronounce this word. Puh-Teet. This is a French word which means someone who is very small but slim and beautiful. This is usually used for women who are quite slim and beautiful. So you could say that, “she’s a petite beauty” and the word slight also has a similar meaning. Someone who is small, beautiful and very delicate. So you could say that she is a slight or a petite beauty. Right. So, we have so many words for someone who is very slim but don’t worry we have no dearth of words for someone on the opposite side which is someone who is fat. So let’s look at the words here. Stocky-This is a very positive word for someone who has a strong built, a strong body like I told you earlier, Rugby players are usually quite stocky. Which means they have a strong built. They are muscular. And generally, quite wide. They are quite wide in their structure. So you could say that, “Rash has always been stocky”. The next one that we have is solid. It also has a very similar meaning like stocky. Someone who is slightly fat, but strong. So you could say that, “James has always been solid since he’s a child” The next one we have is “Big”. Now this gets a bit too direct to say to somebody, “You’re quite big” which means you’re quite fat and you’d avoid, wanna avoid to say that saying that, So how to use it in a sentence. If at all, you wanna use it, you could say that, “Sophie has gotten too big, was she always like that?” Which means that she’s gotten very fat, had she always been like that earlier as well? So someone who is fat. So big is directly for someone being-FAT. The next two that we have is someone who is plump and chubby. Ok. Now that’s a very cute one. You usually use this for young kids, young children who are fleshy, who’ve got some cute flesh. And they look very vibrant with their flesh. And they’re cute and soft to hold and cuddle. So plump and chubby is used for young children. And if you wanna use it in a sentence that you could say that “Sasha was admiring the baby’s plump legs” OR “Sasha was admiring the baby’s chubby cheeks” The last one that we have is someone who is “overweight”. Now just like emaciated, this is also a medical condition. It’s the opposite for emaciated. Emaciated is a person who is too thin because of a medical condition. Overweight is a person who is too fat because of a medical condition. So if you go to a doctor, he might tell you that you’re overweight if you’re too fat. And it has a slightly clinical tone. And in other cases, if somebody is extremely fat, the doctor might call that person “obese”. Obese. This is a higher degree of being overweight. With this we come to an end of today’s lesson where we learned about different body shapes and how do we talk about someone who is too slim or too fat or how to be not too direct or sometimes too direct. I hope you learned a lot and that you’ll come back for more lessons with me. Bye Bye
Add comment