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Describing a picture in English
Try to answer the following questions using the vocabulary and grammar structures you have learned in Level 2 English :
- What can you see in the picture? Where are the people and things in the picture?
- What do they look like? (physical description) How do they look? (emotional state) What are they like? Speculate about the relationship between them.
- What is happening? What are they doing?
- Speculate about the circumstances. What happened just before the photo? What is happening now? What is going to happen next?
- Details: Say what you can see in the picture, and where people and things are in the picture ( simple present tense, there is/there are ) If possible, say what the picture is about. This is a picture (photo, painting) of … (place or event) This is a picture of a family having a picnic in a park. This is a photograph of a city street. This is a photo of a birthday celebration. This is a picture of a man and a woman sitting at a table.
If it´s not that kind of picture, go right on to describing what you see.
I can see…There is/are…In this picture I can clearly see/ I think I can see…
In the foreground you can see ... You can see ………….. in the foreground. In the foreground there is/are…. There is/are …………. in the foreground. In the background you can see ... You can see ……………in the background. In the background there is/are…. There is/are …………….in the background. In the center there is/are… At the top there is/are… At the bottom there is/are… On the left/right there is/are…
In the distance…In the middle… At the front/ back Between… next to... near… close to…. over….. above…. underneath….. below… etc. There is/are……. by the door/on the wall/on the ground…. Opposite/ in front of…….
2. Describe people and things. What do they look like? (physical description)
Physical Description (simple present tense)
Hair He has a beard/a moustache. ( or: has got ) He is bald. She has curly/ straight/long/short/blond/brown/black/red hair. Her hair is dyed purple.
Height and Weight He is tall and thin. She is medium height. He is quite plump/slim/skinny….
Clothes ( present continuous tense ) She is wearing a suit/dress. He is wearing black pants and a red shirt. She is wearing high heels/boots/trainers. She is wearing a (pink, red, etc.) swimsuit/bathing suit.
To judge from the clothes he (she) is wearing, he has just come back from the gym. (they are) they are going to go swimming. to a party/wedding/.
How do they look? (emotional state). What are they like? Speculate about the relationship between them. (Simple present tense, comparatives, modals)
He looks tired. He looks angry. He looks depressed. She looks confused. They look happy. They look excited. (tired, bored, cold, etc.) They look like tourists. They look like they want to go home He is sitting alone so maybe he is shy. Perhaps they are... They may be married. They might be talking about the weather. The man who is wearing the hat might be the boy´s father.
3. What is happening? What are they doing? (present progressive tense, relative clauses, modals, etc )
Here you describe what is happening just now.
The woman in the foreground is wearing a blue dress. She has blond hair, and she looks happy. She is smiling. She is sitting in a chair and looking at the man, who is wearing jeans and a yellow t-shirt. He is helping the young boy fix a toy airplane.
You can also describe what is happening, what has just happened, what is going to happen next… (simple present, present continuous, simple past, past progressive, going to, comparatives, superlatives, used to, passive voice, phrasal verbs, first conditional, second conditional, etc….)
He is attending a concert. He arrived late because as he was driving to the concert the car in front of him broke down. He has been looking forward to this concert for months. After the concert he is going out to dinner to the most expensive restaurant in town with friends. …..
4. Speculate. Make deductions about the people/places/things.
It looks like the man has something in his hands. I think the man has something in his hands. It might be keys. The people are wearing coats and hats, so it might be winter. He looks happy. Maybe he just asked a girl for a date and she said yes. They may be sad because their team lost the football game. It might be… This woman is probably a tourist because she has a guidebook in her hands. The woman has a guidebook in her hands. She may be on holiday. They seem to be…they appear to be… + adjective (tired, worried, happy)
- gerund (waiting for a bus, listening to the radio…)
When you aren´t sure: I´m not sure, but it looks like…..
These two pictures are just for practice, as an example. Students will have different pictures to describe.
Sample Picture 1
This is a picture of a Japanese woman and two children on a street. I think it is a mother and her two daughters. One daughter is about 3 years old and the other daughter is about 5 years old. The sun is shining. The mother and the children are in the foreground. In the background there is a wall, a fence and some flowers behind the fence. There is a white and red shopping bag on the wall. The woman is on the right. She is facing the camera. She´s wearing a grey suit and she looks serious. The mother is talking to the younger child. This child is wearing red pants, a white shirt and white shoes. On her left is her older sister, who is wearing light brown pants, a blue jacket and red boots.
