# Describing physical characteristics

In this activity you will work on the vocabulary and structures you will need for describing people, and practise the vocabulary you have just learned.

## Attività 2

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Look at the image and decide whether the statements are true, false or whether the drawing does not provide the necessary information to understand if they are true or false.

Guardate l’immagine e decidete se le affermazioni sono vere, false o se il disegno non dà le informazioni necessarie per capire se sono vere o false.

Figure 3

1 John ha i capelli ricci.

Vero
Falso
Forse

2 Ha i baffi.

Vero
Falso
Forse

3 Ha la barba.

Vero
Falso
Forse

4 Non porta gli occhiali.

Vero
Falso
Forse

5 Ha i baffi biondi.

Vero
Falso
Forse

6 Ha gli occhi neri.

Vero
Falso
Forse

7 È molto grasso.

Vero
Falso
Forse

## Box 1 Describing physical characteristics

To describe someone’s physical characteristics, you generally use the verb essere with an appropriate adjective (or adjectives).

> Marco è calvo.

> Marco is bald.

> Giovanni è grosso.

> Giovanni is big.

> Teresa è magra.

> Teresa is slim.

> Sara è attraente e sportiva.

> Sara is attractive and sporty.

To describe someone’s physical characteristics you can also use avere followed by a noun.

> Dario ha la barba e i baffi.

> Dario has a beard and a moustache.

> Stefania ha gli occhi castani.

> Stefania has brown eyes.

Finally, to describe what someone is wearing, use portare followed by a noun.

> Renzo porta spesso una giacca verde.

> Renzo often wears a green jacket.

> Dario porta gli occhiali.

> Dario wears glasses.

> Sofia porta sempre i capelli raccolti.

> Sofia always has her hair tied back.

OpenLearn - Intermediate Italian: describing people
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