Personality and Character
Learn 20 A2 English words for personality and character - reliable, generous, stubborn, get on with, take after - with a story and a quiz.
At A1 you learned to describe how somebody looks. At A2 you describe what somebody is like – and that is a completely different set of words. These 20 include two phrasal verbs and the prefixes that turn any of them into their opposite. Learn them, then help me choose a flatmate, which turned out to be much harder than choosing a flat.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˌpɜːsəˈnæləti/
The kind of person somebody is – how they behave and feel.
She has a very strong personality.
/ˈkærəktə(r)/
The qualities inside a person, especially the moral ones.
Losing well tells you a lot about somebody’s character.
/ˌaʊtˈɡəʊɪŋ/
Enjoys meeting new people and talking to them.
You need to be outgoing to work in sales.
/ˈkɒnfɪdənt/
Sure about yourself and your abilities.
He is much more confident than he was last year.
/ˈpeɪʃnt/
Can wait or deal with problems without getting angry.
A good teacher has to be patient.
/ɪmˈpeɪʃnt/
Cannot wait calmly. The opposite of patient.
I get impatient in long queues.
/ˈdʒenərəs/
Happy to give money, time or help to others.
She is very generous with her time.
/ˈselfɪʃ/
Thinks only about themselves.
It was selfish of him to take the last one.
/ˈɒnɪst/
Always tells the truth. The h is silent: ON-ist.
Be honest with me – was it good?
/pəˈlaɪt/
Says please and thank you and thinks about other people.
He was extremely polite to my parents.
/ruːd/
Not polite. Says or does things that upset people.
It is rude to look at your phone at dinner.
/ˌhɑːd ˈwɜːkɪŋ/
Puts a lot of effort into work or study.
She is the most hard-working person in the office.
/ˈleɪzi/
Does not want to work or make an effort.
I was completely lazy all weekend.
/rɪˈlaɪəbl/
You can trust them to do what they said.
He is late for everything but he is reliable in an emergency.
/ˈstʌbən/
Refuses to change their mind, even when they are wrong.
My grandfather is the most stubborn man alive.
/ˈtʃɪəfl/
Happy and positive most of the time.
She is always cheerful, even on Mondays.
/ˈsɪəriəs/
Does not joke much; thinks carefully about things.
He looks serious but he is very funny.
/sens əv ˈhjuːmə(r)/
The ability to find things funny and make others laugh.
They have the same sense of humour.
/ɡet ˈɒn wɪð/
To have a good relationship with somebody. Americans say get along with.
I get on with my sister better now.
/teɪk ˈɑːftə(r)/
To look like or behave like an older member of your family.
You really take after your mother.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
The Flatmate Advert
When my flatmate moved out last spring I had to find a new one, and I learned something very quickly: describing a room is easy, and describing a personality is not.
My first advert said: “Looking for someone reliable and honest.” Eleven people replied, and every single one of them described themselves using more or less those two words. Of course they did. Nobody writes “I am fairly selfish and occasionally quite rude” in a message to a stranger who has a spare room.
So I stopped reading messages and started meeting people instead. Amir was extremely outgoing, talked for fifty minutes without stopping, and asked me one question right at the end, on the doorstep. Layla was serious, arrived with a written list, and wanted to know exactly what the heating bill had been in February. Karim was so cheerful at nine on a Sunday morning that I did not entirely believe it.
In the end I chose Dina, and I chose her for a very small reason. She arrived twenty minutes late, and instead of inventing a story about the traffic she said: “I am sorry. I am terrible with time and I always have been.” That one sentence told me more than the other eleven conversations put together, because she was honest about the thing that made her look bad.
Two years later I can report the rest of it. Dina is enormously generous – she cooks for four people and lives with one. She is completely hard-working and equally lazy depending on the day of the week, and I have given up trying to predict which one I am going to get. She is wildly impatient in a queue and remarkably patient with people, which I have decided is the right way round. And she is the most stubborn human being I have ever met: we argued about one picture on the living room wall for three weeks, and the picture is exactly where she wanted it.
We get on with each other far better than I expected. She says I am too polite to complain about anything and not confident enough to argue about it afterwards, and that I take after my father in both. She has met my father twice. She is completely right.
The only thing the two of us genuinely share is a sense of humour. That, it turns out, is the part of a person’s character you cannot put in an advert, and the only part that really matters at eleven at night when somebody has eaten the last of your bread.
Build the opposite yourself. Most personality adjectives take a negative prefix instead of a new word. Learn which prefix goes with which:
im- before p or m: patient → impatient, polite → impolite, possible → impossible
un- before most others: reliable → unreliable, friendly → unfriendly, kind → unkind
dis- for a few: honest → dishonest, organised → disorganised
in- for some: correct → incorrect, formal → informal
If you are not sure, un- is the safest guess – it is by far the most common.
Adjective + preposition. These are fixed and you have to learn them together:
patient with somebody · generous with money / to people · rude to somebody · polite to somebody · honest with somebody about something
The two phrasal verbs. Get on with means to have a good relationship – I get on with my boss. It is British; Americans say get along with. Take after means to resemble an older relative – She takes after her grandmother. Do not say take from.
Pronunciation: the h in honest is silent, so it takes an: an honest answer. Same silent h in hour and honour.
Spelling: British humour, American humor – but both say HYOO-mer.
Good to have: honest, reliable, generous, patient, polite, hard-working, cheerful, confident, outgoing.
Less good: selfish, rude, lazy, impatient, stubborn.
Neutral: serious, personality, character, sense of humour.
Phrasal verbs: get on with, take after.
Now do this properly: describe three people you know – one in your family, one friend, one colleague – using three adjectives each. Use take after once and one negative prefix.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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