Let's Learn English! Topic: Types of People 🕴️👩‍🏭👎 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello, and welcome to this English lesson about types of people or describing people with nouns. Now, we often will describe people using adjectives. We will say someone is a certain way using an adjective. But sometimes we simply use a noun to describe a person. A simple thing would be this. I am an optimistic person, but you could also say that I'm an optimist, so I can describe it in two different ways. So this lesson will be spent talking about how to describe people using nouns. The actual names we give people based on how they look or their behavior or the things that they do. So once again, welcome to this English lesson about types of people, how to describe people using the appropriate nouns. A jerk. So I picked this as my first one, and I need to explain this one. First of all, a jerk is a person who is very mean, not very nice, doesn't treat you very well, and you don't enjoy being around them. But you should know that the word jerk is very informal. You wouldn't say to your boss, hey, you're being a jerk, or you're a jerk. That would be an insult. But you might say to a coworker, the boss is being a jerk today, or the boss is a jerk today. When you're having a private conversation, you might use the word jerk, but when you say this to someone's face, it is an insult. Like, if you said, bob, you're a jerk, I'd be like, whoa, what do you mean? I'm not. Don't say that. That's mean. I'm not sure exactly how I would respond, but I. A jerk is a person who is not very nice, not very kind. Maybe they say mean things. Maybe they do mean things. Very informal and not used directly when talking to a person, or they will be insulted. An introvert and an extrovert. There's two spellings. So an introvert is someone who likes to spend time alone, someone who prefers reading books or going for walks by themselves. And when they do spend time with people, they like spending time time with maybe one or two other people. They don't necessarily like going to a party where there's 50 people. That might be a little overwhelming if you're an introvert. Introverts like hiking. They like talking with one friend for an hour instead of ten different people every five minutes for half an hour. They're very calm in their own thoughts. They like to just sit and think. Sometimes I, surprisingly, am an introvert. Even though I'm on the Internet and I talk all the time, I actually prefer being by myself. Or just with Jen or with one or two other people. So an introvert, a very quiet person, an extrovert is the opposite. So again, there are two spellings. One has an o in the middle, one has an a in the middle, and they seem to just be used interchangeably. If you search the Internet for extrovert with either Spelling, you will see both Spellings come up. An extrovert loves being around people. When an introvert is around people, they lose energy. When an extrovert is around people, they gain energy. It makes them happy and excited, and they love talking to people. So an extrovert loves being around people and loves just hanging out with people and doing things with them. An asset. So you can see this person here is helping move boxes. You would say, this person is an asset. An asset is a person who is very helpful, usually at work. So I might say, oh, the new person we hired is a real asset to our company. She works really hard. She's awesome. She's really good at her job. She is an asset. So when a person is an asset, it means they are beneficial. It means they are helpful. It means that, um, everything they do makes the company better. And again, we often use this when we're talking about work. Okay. When we're talking about people at work, you wouldn't say, oh, my brother is a real asset to our family. But you might say, joe, the person who works on the first floor, is a real asset to our company. He's very helpful, very hardworking, etcetera. So there are two versions of this phrase, and you can just use the word pain. Oh, the new guy we hired is a pain. Oh, it's such a pain working with him. He is a pain. Or you could say pain in the butt. Remember, the butt is your back end down here, the bottom part of your. The top of your legs, the bottom of your back in between there. And then the very informal version is to say pain in the ass. I don't recommend that you say that. Ass is not considered a very nice word. So again, I similar to jerk. You wouldn't say to someone, you're a pain, or you're a pain in the butt. That would be rude and offensive. They would be insulted. But you definitely might say to a colleague, oh, I have to work with Frank today, and he is a pain in the butt. Every time I try to work faster, he gets in the way. I don't enjoy working with him. He is a pain. He is a pain in the butt. A mystery. So a person can be a mystery. It means that you don't know a lot about them. They don't talk about themselves very much. You might have someone you work, you've worked with for five or ten years and you don't know very much about them. They are a mystery. So similar to. You can read a book that's a mystery where you're not sure what's happening and why it's happening. A person can also be a mystery where you don't know a lot about them and you don't know what they do on the weekends, and you don't know why when they come to work Monday morning, they look really tired all the time. They're a mystery. This is very similar to an asset. You could say someone is a great addition. We usually say this about a new employee. So you might say Joe is a great addition to, to our team, or Joe has been a great addition. It means that the person is hardworking. They just do a lot. They're, they're fun to work with. They make the company or business better. So I would hope that if I was ever hired somewhere, they would say, oh, Bob has been a great addition to our company. We really, really enjoy having him on the team. Let's see here. A worrier or a worrywart. So this is someone who worries all the time. This is someone who isn't relaxed. They are always thinking something will go wrong, or they're always worried that something bad will happen. This can happen when you're a parent. Sometimes parents can worry when their children are out at night. Like if one of our kids goes out at night. Jen and I worry a bit, but we're not worry warts. We worry a little bit. We hope that they're safe while they're on the road, etc. Etcetera. But a worrywart might worry 24 hours a day. They might toss and turn in their sleep because they're so stressed about something and so worried. So we would call that person a worrier, or we would call them a worrywart. Someone who worries a lot. Someone who is always stressed about what could happen. A procrastinator. This is me sometimes, not all the time. A procrastinator is someone who, if they have five days to do something, they do it all on the fifth day. At the end of the day. A procrastinator is someone who, when the teacher asks them to do an assignment and gives them three days, they don't start right away. They do other things for a few days, and then eventually, when there's only, like, when it's the night before, they suddenly get a lot of energy and get something done. So in English, we say a procrastinator leaves things to the last minute. That's the other phrase we use to describe someone who is a procrastinator. They don't get work done right away. They leave work till the last minute. They don't start on day one. They start on the day before or even the morning of when something is due. Team player. This is another one, similar to asset or great addition. You could say someone is a real team player. I have a few colleagues where if I am put on a team with them, I am happy because they are team players. So if three of us have to work on a project, I love it. When I'm with other people who are real team players. I do my work. They do their work. Have you ever worked with a group of people where one person doesn't do anything, that person is not a team player. When you work with a group of people and everyone does their job, they're all team players, and it makes the job more enjoyable, for sure. I love working with people who are team players. A hot dog. So a hot dog is something you eat on a bun. It's like a sausage. But you could also call a person a hot dog. And we usually do this when we're referring to how they drive a snowmobile or how they surf or how they go, what they do with their skateboard. If they do a lot of tricks, you might say they're a hot dog. If I see a student doing donuts with a car in the parking lot, I could call that person a hot dog. A hot dog likes to show off their ability to surf, to rollerblade, to, um, skateboard, to drive a dirt bike, uh, in a way that makes people like to watch them. If they drive a dirt bike, they might do a lot of wheelies or catwalks. You'll have to look up those two words to see what they mean. A critic. Critics are good sometimes, but it can be annoying. If you know someone who's a critic, they are often very negative. They might say, your shoes don't match, your pants, your haircut doesn't look good. They say negative things. The reason I say critics can be good is sometimes in the comments, I will hear from a critic, someone who tells me something about my lesson that they don't like, but that can also help me make a good lesson. So even hearing someone who's a critic say something, even though hearing it can be a little bit annoying, it can also be helpful. In my first year of teaching, it was nice that a couple people were critics of my teaching. They kind of told me what I could do better and what I wasn't doing well. So a critic. Sometimes one of your parents might be a critic. As parents get older, they can become more critical. And so you might have a mom or dad who's 60 or 65 or 70, and they're a critic. You don't drive the right car. You don't have the right job. Your kids aren't successful enough. They are a critic. I don't have that. Thankfully, my mom is not a critic. She's a very kind and gentle person. A hard worker. This is something I think everyone should be. I saw this picture of this mandeh. He's a little bit older. He's making jewelry. My guess is that he is a hard worker. So, like, things are hard. Like, this table is hard. But when you use hard to describe a worker, you mean that that person is very efficient. They do good work. The work they do is high quality. They work long hours. They don't sit around and talk when they're supposed to be working. They are a hard worker. I like to think I'm a hard worker. But you can only be described as a hard worker by other people. You can't say you're a hard worker. Other people have to see you doing a lot of work and doing it well, and then they will describe you as a hard worker. Let me just check something for a sec here. Yeah. Excellent problem solver. This is a fun one. I work with a few people who are great problem solvers. We might be planning to do something, and there's a few problems, like, we need a speaker and a microphone. We need to find lots of chairs to set up. And there are people who are problem solvers. You give them a problem and very quickly they think of a way to solve the problem. So if I, for instance, if the live stream stopped working, I tried to use my problem solving skills to figure out why Jen is a great problem solver. Often when something goes wrong on the farm, she has a good idea. She's a good problem solver. She has a good idea to help fix the problem. Brainiac. This is kind of an informal term for someone who is really, really smart. Maybe you have a nephew or niece or a relative who just does really well in school. They went to school and they got like 100% in every class. And now they're in university studying biochemistry, some very advanced topic. They are doing well, you would say. They are a brainiac. Again, a very informal term. Even the dictionary didn't like this term when I typed it in. But a brainiac is someone who is very smart. I have some cousins who are real brainiacs. They are super, super smart. Fangirl fanboy. This is a relatively new term. This refers to a boy or girl or man or woman who really, really likes a certain series of books or movies or a tv show. So, for instance, Star wars has a lot of fangirls and fanboys. These are people that love Star wars. It is their favorite thing in the world. If a new Star wars book comes out, they buy it. If a new Star wars show is on tv, they watch it. Sometimes they can also be critics when they take a book and turn it into a tv show or movie. Sometimes the fangirls and fanboys become critics because they don't like how it was done. But yes, a fangirl or fanboy is someone who really likes a certain. It's usually a series of movies, like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter. I'm trying to think of more. You can also be a fanboy of, like, a singer or a band that works as well, but it simply means you really, really like something. Sucker. Yeah. So again, this is an informal term. This is not a polite term. When you call someone a sucker, it means that they easily believe things. So if I told you these were both Rolexes and I sold you the fake one for a $1,000, someone might call you a sucker because you were tricked. Okay, so again, a very formal, terminal or, sorry, very informal, not formal. A very informal term. You wouldn't call someone a sucker, but you might describe someone in conversation. So let's say this. Let's say my friend buys a fake Rolex and thinks it's real, someone might say, oh, you're a sucker. And he would be offended if they said that. But when two people are talking about him when he's not there, they might say, ah, he's such a sucker. He paid like, $500, and it's fake. It's not real. Can you tell which one is fake? I don't know which one is fake. I would. First of all, I wouldn't buy one, and I would probably buy the fake because I don't know what, what a real Rolex looks like a loser. Again, this is an informal term, and this is derogatory. This is an insult. That's what derogatory means. So a loser is someone. Yeah, we use this in a lot of ways. When someone does something that we don't, like, you might say, oh, that person's a loser. It's. It's very insulting, by the way, to call someone a loser. If I said, oh, that other person on YouTube, they're such a loser. They're trying to make videos about knitting. I don't know. That's. That is an insult to say someone is a loser. And it doesn't. It's not an insult when you're talking about winners and losers. You know, like the Toronto Blue Jays, they were the losers last night. They didn't win the game. That's just a description. But if you say, oh, that guy on the team is such a loser, like, we often emphasize it with such a. Or he's a real loser, it's. It's just really insulting and really negative. It means you don't like the person. It means you don't think the things they do are cool. It's quite judgmental would be the word for it. So, by the way, that's the l. You might know the song from the movie Shrek. If you put it. It's the l for. That's the hand signal for loser. You put an l on your forehead. Hypocrite. So I had to make a slide for this one. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing but then doesn't actually do it themselves. So you have two people sitting in a car here saying, hey, you shouldn't litter. You shouldn't throw garbage out your window. And then 2 seconds later, he's throwing garbage out the window. So they're saying one thing, but then they're not doing what they say. Some people do this where they're like, everyone should recycle everyone when they buy things, they should sort things into plastics and paper. And then I. They themselves just throw everything into the garbage can instead of recycling. So a hypocrite says one thing, and then they kind of do the opposite thing themselves. Prodigy. A prodigy is usually a child who is exceptionally good at something at a young age. So this girl is playing piano. If she was playing something from Beethoven, we would say she is a prodigy. Normally, a little five, six year old child isn't able to play advanced pieces of music. But every once in a while, there will be a music prodigy. There will be sometimes acting prodigies, but usually it's in the world of music or art and those kinds of things. So a prodigy is someone who is really good at something at a really young age, an opportunist. So I had to make a slide for this one, too, to explain it. An opportunist is someone who tries to use every situation to help themselves to their advantage. So you see here we have this guy saying, hi, I'm a lawyer, right after a car accident happened. So instead of asking if everybody's okay, instead of calling the police, an opportunist who is a lawyer would say, here's my cardinal. If you want to sue the other guy or if you want to take the other guy to court. So that person would be an opportunist, someone who likes to use every situation so they benefit from it, and other people maybe don't. An optimist and a pessimist. So an optimist is usually quite positive. A pessimist is usually quite negative. An optimist is optimistic. A pessimist is pessimistic. But an optimist would say, hey, that glass is half full. It's a very positive thing to say. An optimist would probably say, hmm, they're calling for rain today, but it probably won't happen till after the market. So an optimist is usually thinking positive thoughts. A pessimist would say, it's supposed to rain all day. We shouldn't even go out. We should just stay home. And a pessimist would think that this glass is half empty. A pushover. I couldn't find a really good picture for this, but a pushover is someone who agrees very easily to do things. So if I said to someone, let's say at market, someone came up and wanted to buy one bouquet of flowers, and I said, oh, you should buy two. And they say, okay. And they don't say, like, I don't have enough money or, I don't want to. Or if you're at a party and you're bringing food around and you say to someone, oh, try this one. And they say, okay. It means that they're very easily convinced of something. It could also mean, like, um, so when you have two parents, one parent might say yes all the time. So you might say that parents, a real pushover. Um, are you noticing I use the word real in front of a lot of these words? That's how we emphasize them. So you could say, oh, that guy's a real jerk. That's a real team player. He's a real critic. Oh, he's a real prodigy. He's a real loser. So you can emphasize it by adding that word. This phrase isn't used as much anymore, but I really like it. Tree hugger is used to refer to someone who loves the outdoors and loves the environment. You can understand where it comes from. It's someone who doesn't really do it, but likes to hug trees. You know, you can give a person a hug. You can also give a tree a hug. So a tree hugger is someone who loves the environment and cares for the environment. An environmentalist. A pack rat is someone who never throws anything away. If you look at this picture, you can see there's a lot of stuff in this garage. Um, this person should go and bring some of this to the recycling center, should drop it off at a thrift store and should bring some to the dump. Pack rat is someone who. Well, if you look over here, I'm a bit of a pack rat. You can't see all of it, but I do have quite a bit of stuff down there. But, yes, a pack rat buys things and then never actually gets rid of anything. They just keep it forever and then eventually their house is really full. A bigwig. I believe this is the head of FIFA. I'm not sure, but he's a bigwig. A bigwig is someone who is in charge of something, someone who is a director, a boss, someone who has the authority to make decisions. So, um, maybe in the chat, someone can type this person's name. This person is a bigwig. They are a very important person in the world of european football, in the world of soccer. He is a bigwig. An important person. Um, but it's not like, for everyone. Like, you wouldn't call an actor bigwig, like a celebrity. A bigwig is. Really needs to be in charge of a large organization. The head of the Olympics is a big wig. The head of FIFA is a big wig. The commissioner of the National Hockey League is a big wig. Chatterbox. A chatterbox is someone who talks a lot. We usually use it when describing children. We don't often say an adult is a chatterbox, but you can. But definitely a chatterbox. A chatterbox is someone who talks a lot. I'm a bit of a chatterbox. When I do my live streams, I tend to talk a lot because that's the whole reason you are all here, to hear me talk and describe things. So a chatterbox, someone who talks a lot. Copycat is someone who does not do their own work. A copycat is someone who looks at someone else's work and then does the same thing. This happens on YouTube sometimes. Sometimes I make an English lesson, and then a few months later, I'll see another English teacher do almost exactly the same lesson. They're a little bit of a copycat. I'm not going to name names because sometimes I do a lesson and then I realize that someone else did a very similar lesson a year ago. I'm not a copycat, though. I think I just happened to have the same idea and maybe other people do as well, but I don't want to get too far into it. By the way, little secret for all 258 people watching, I was invited to be in a video with other YouTube English teachers. We all shot a little 1 minute clip and sent it to one YouTube English teacher and she is going to put them all together and release it at the end of the month. I'm not going to say who, but I was very honored to be invited to be part of that, so it was very cool. A coward. A coward is someone who is very afraid. This is also an insult. You would not tell someone they are a coward. But maybe you're reading a story and there's a knight who bravely fights against the dragon, but then his friend, who's also a knight, is a coward and hides in the town. So a coward is someone who is very afraid. A coward is someone who definitely wouldn't fight the dragon if it was a story about dragons. A coward is. We might call them a scaredy cat as well. We use cat a lot. A scaredy cat. A foodie is someone who loves food. In particular, they like buying food at restaurants. They might also like making food. But generally, when I think of foodie, I think of people I know who love going to really cool restaurants and then talking about the food that they ate there. Oh, there's a new indian restaurant in this town, or there's a new chinese restaurant in this town, or there's a really new, really cool new burger place in this city. So they go there, they eat the food, and then they talk about the food. They love food, and they love talking about food. This is a great one. This is a common term to describe someone who, at work or in business, just is a really hard working person. So a real go getter. I always think of someone who bakes and sells bread. I would describe this person as a go getter because you need to get up at like three in the morning, start making bread. You have to be a real go getter. So a go getter has energy. They work fast, they do high quality work. Um, they are energetic when they're working. They are awesome. I love people who are real go getters. Um, especially students. Sometimes you'll have a student who's a real go getter. Always done their work on time, asks good questions, learns on their own. Many of you learn on your own. Very cool, very cool. And then mover and shaker. Mover and a shaker is very similar, but usually refers to someone who gets a lot of promotions very quickly. So this person, I think I'm going to imagine, started out washing dishes, but they were a real mover and a shaker. Eventually they were a server, and then they were running the restaurant. They were the restaurant manager. Then they bought their own restaurant, and now they own five restaurants. You would call that person, especially someone who looks so young, a real mover and a shaker, someone who gets a lot of promotions or works their way up very quickly, a racist. Is this my last slide? No, it should have been. A racist is someone who doesn't like someone else because of the color of their skin. I like this picture. Fight racism. To me, there are just people in the world. There are not different. I don't know how to say this. Like, everyone is their own person. And I think what's cool about the Internet is that I can simply teach all of you and we don't have to worry about where we're from or what we look like. So racism is when you think an entire. You think someone is a certain way because you think everyone who looks like them is that way, and it's. And it's just a stereotype and not true. So racism is awful. We should fight racism and end it. I'm glad that I do not see racist comments in my chat or in my comments. That's awesome. This community is not racist at all. And I really, really appreciate that. It is awesome. It's a good community brat. It's my last slide. Brat is a kid who doesn't behave. A brat is a kid who doesn't listen to their parents. They run around yelling, they throw things. They, when they go to school, the teacher doesn't know what to do with them and is constantly having them sit in a chair on the side of the classroom, giving them timeouts, we call it. So a brat is a child who misbehaves a lot. I was gonna say there are some brats in the chat, but there aren't. But a brat is a child who. Yeah. Doesn't listen to teachers, doesn't listen to their parents very well, and is constantly misbehaving. I was not a brat as a child, by the way. I think I was a pretty good kid. I was more of an introvert than a brat, for sure.