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How to best describe personalities in Chinese?

I Have a Question
#1

Hi ladies, gents and fellow Chinese nerds,

Constance and I talked about some common personality traits in our intermediate video lesson PERSONALITY 1 and some more bizarre and special terms in our upper lesson PERSONALITY 2 .

Of course there are tons of personality types and traits that weren’t covered in the videos so I thought the forum would be a good place to continue the conversation and share extra bits of vocab and phrases with each other.

I’ll keep some of my responses on this top post and edit as I get questions.

Fi

User28880 asks: How do you say someone’s a creative person?

她是一个很有创意的人。

Wende asks: suggestions for - tactful, clumsy, shy,arrogant, modest, courageous, coward,weepy, sentimental, obstinate,compliant, quick-witted, slow, phony, authentic, optimistic, pessimistic, controlled, excitable, rude, polite, thoughtless, considerate,compassionate, pitiless

great responses from 111 below!

#2

I learned 愤世嫉俗 as misanthropic. I think it gets at the “always angry” feeling more than “cynical,” which to me indicates more of a lack of faith in people and society.

#3

I wouldn’t mind hearing some more involved descriptions or depictions of 风趣 and 幽默. I’ve heard them so many times, but I never have a clear idea of what that type of behaviour would look like. Also, how do they differ from 俏皮?

#4

他是一個講話很委婉的人。
他是個動作笨拙的人。
他是個害羞的人。
他是個高傲、自高自大的人。
他是個很謙虛的人。
她是個很勇敢的人。
他是個狗熊、懦夫。
他是個愛哭泣的人。
他是個有多愁善感的人。
他是個很固執的人。
他是個很遵守的人。
她是個心靈手巧的人。
他是個遲鈍的人。
他是個很虛偽的人。
她是個很真誠的人。
他是個樂觀的人。
他是個悲觀的人。
Controlled?
他是個容易興奮的人。
他是個不禮貌的人。Used for both Rude and impolite.
他是個有禮貌的人。
他是個粗心的人。
他是個體貼的人。
他是個心慈手軟的人。他是個對別人有同理心的人。
他是個狼狗。他是個對人無情的人。
In the order you typed Wende. Of course there will no doubt be better ways to express some of these personalities. Perhaps Fiona and Constance, or a curious Mandarin native speaker, may want to add more 。

#5

First of all THANK YOU 111 for you AWESOME responses to wede’s list. Apart from one example everything was SPOT ON! (sorry for the excessive use of caps. I’m so 感動 :blush: )

  1. Very close on “compliant"! You can improve the phrase by adding 规矩 after 遵守。

他是一个很遵守规矩的人

or for a more advanced phrase…

他是一个循规蹈矩的人

  1. “Controlled” is indeed a little tricky as it can vary a bit depending on what s/he is controlling - Emotions, desires, actions…etc.

内敛 is used more for people that control their emotions well. It’s positive word and a compliment.

我的主管是个很内敛的人，不会随便发脾气。

If you want to comment on someone’s ability to control one’s behaviour or desires you could use自制力 (self-control).

她的自制力很强。

or just use the verb to control 控制

他很会控制她的自己的情绪/慾望/行为。(but I would stick to the two examples up top)

  1. 俏皮 I would say is a mixture of cheeky and cute. Mostly used to describe young women.
1 Like
#6

蓝狗，感谢你关于这些多的生词。我一定要慢慢看就学它们的意思。你是中国人吗？
万德。

#7

不會，萬德先生。回答同學也是有幫助我的。哈哈，我不是中國人。

#8

還有關於怎麼用國語講Controlled 的性格，依我看Controlled的性格有三種意思。 第一是有能力克制衝動，第二是相反，就是說性格傾向衝動，控制不了自己的行為， 第三是一種心理病，這類心裡病較普遍，其叫做強迫症（obsessive-compulsive disorder).