Useful English Adjectives for Talking About Relationships [591]

🚨Improve your English with structured online lessons. Book a free trial and get clear feedback on your level, pronunciation and speaking. Book here ➡️  https://www.englishlessonviaskype.com/trial

In this episode, you’ll learn useful adjectives that help you describe different types of relationships in a more natural and accurate way. The focus is on real situations, such as friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, and working relationships.

You’ll learn how to choose words that match the situation, so your English sounds clearer and less basic when you talk about people and emotions.

After listening, you’ll be able to:

• describe relationships more accurately
 • talk about feelings and behaviour with better vocabulary
 • understand relationship vocabulary in conversations and articles
 • speak more naturally when describing people and situations

If you want to improve your English vocabulary and talk about relationships with more confidence, this episode will help.

If you often hesitate, make mistakes, or feel unsure when speaking English, book a trial lesson. We assess your level, correct you clearly, and give you a focused plan so you know exactly what to improve. 

Book a free trial here: https://www.englishlessonviaskype.com/trial

If you prefer to study on your own, explore our online courses. They give you structured lessons to build stronger grammar, clearer pronunciation, and more confident speaking step by step

Discover all courses and guides: https://englishlessonviaskype.com/confidence

Transcript

Speaker: 0:09

Hi there. This is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English to help you to get a better language, to help you with your business, English skills, goals are, we're here to help. And for those of you and your to one lessons, well, you know Just get in touch www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free trial lesson. And we'd be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. So what are we going to talk to Well, in today's class, we're going to look at adjectives and we're going to look at adjectives to describe relationships. We're all involved in part of our lives are in the And hopefully, for those of you So relationships are a really, really important part of our lives. So I'm going to give you some we use to describe different both good and bad. Okay. If you have any questions come back to me through email. I'll give you the contact details at the end of this particular class. And if you have any other a send me an email. I'd be very, very happy to So let's go. So we've got fourteen individual adjectives describing relationships. So I'll list them down one by And then I'll go through them and give you an example as to what they mean and how to use them. Supportive. Distant. Tight knit. Caring. Close. Tense. Dysfunctional. Dysfunctional. Insincere. Hollow. Fake. Dishonest. Weak. Stable and finely. Solid. Okay, let's go through them. And remember, these are describe situations that are or lots of these situations. We were describing the person or So we'll start with number one So this would be used to If a person is supportive then So giving support is all about So supportive when we have a to have a discussion about our supportive when we had an siblings or our children. So in a relationship, somebody really important to be there at moment, supportive to give help Second. Distant. This will be quite a negative So we're referring to somebody It means they're not connecting themselves off from they seem to be preoccupied. So when you're trying to talk to somebody who is distant, they literally could be in another location. They could be sitting in front of you, but their mind is somewhere else. Their thoughts are on something They are focusing on perhaps other aspects of their life, but And therefore they look, they that they are distant. They're, they're, They're not They're in the same room, but kilometres away because they They don't connect. Next word is tight knit. So when we use tight knit, we relationship of two people, but So a family relationship, we can refer to it as a very tight knit family. A tight knit means they are They spend a lot of time They are there when they when The the siblings, the brothers spend a lot of time, perhaps on A very tight knit family. If a problem happens for one member of the family, they're all there to lend the helping hand. So tight knit meaning. Really close. Bonded. Really connected together. Okay. Caring. Well, this is a very positive adjective to use a caring personality. He has a very caring He likes to look after people. He's always there. If his mother or father need He's very caring. She's very caring. With her elderly grandmother. She goes to visit her every She brings food, she cleans the So she has a very caring So caring means to take care of. Caring means to be kind and after those people who need our So to provide love and affection Close. A close relationship is a Okay, so a relationship which is A relationship which is built on to the relationship understand We have a very close Of course, in all relationships you can have your difficulties, But overall, if you're close, nothing is going to get in the middle. So if everything is close, very hard to break that to get in between. Okay. So when we're trying to establish a relationship that is close, we have to understand the other party. We have to respect the other party to the relationship to understand what they want, understand what their needs are, and also hopefully that they will understand our needs and our wants. Okay. So close. Yes, I can see they have a very They have been together since They've been together since they You know, nothing seems to upset Any difficulties, they get So that would be a good definition of a close relationship. Tense. So when a relationship is tense, not necessarily about the person, although a person can be tense. Oh, when you feel that all your you could describe yourself as something bad to happen. Then you can be tense. You can be on edge. But a tense relationship is not A tense relationship is something that is waiting for a bomb to explode or something to cause problems. It's never relaxed. It's nobody in the relationship So they're always problems Not now, but there could have weeks or a few days ago, or or a couple of weeks time. So there's that tenseness, meaning there's, um, some likelihood that something small could start a row or start an argument. So now it could be temporary. There's a very tense his job and he's on edge, or There's a tense relationship whether she wants to get married for another little while. She's quite happy living and But getting married is a is a big step, and she needs time to consider that. So the relationship could be she makes her mind up. So tense can be permanent, not relationship for either party. Or it can be temporary because arisen, some problem that has tenseness to be present for a Tense, dysfunctional. We often hear the expression a dysfunctional family dysfunctional means it doesn't work, okay? And a dysfunctional family is a rules, no All boundaries. No manners. Everybody is doing their own And everybody's getting into Somebody on drugs, somebody in One or two members of the the They're living on benefits, all And you could put it all into a as a dysfunctional family. Yeah. So everybody doing their own other, nobody caring for the the So dysfunctional, something that So when we use the word functional, it works. This introduces this prefix and it turns it into a negative dysfunctional family. Okay. Something that just won't or Insincere. Another negative adjective. Insincere when somebody is what they say. They're sincere in their So again, using the prefix I n, we turn it into a negative, the opposite insincere. So thoughts or comments might look on the face of it to be friendly. But you know in reality that There's nothing to them. Okay. Or have a good weekend. Oh yes. I'm really sorry for your Oh, they're just words and somebody doesn't come across as being sincere. And we can describe him or her as being insincere, or the comments that they make as being completely insincere. No love, no respect, no, uh, support behind them. So completely and utterly Hollow. Well, something is hollow. It's empty. The hollow tree. So when a tree falls down in the forest and over the years the inside of the tree rots and decays, you're left with an empty trunk of the tree, which is hollow. Okay. The hollow branch where the owl or the bird nests for the spring, so that this is a hollow branch. So it's empty. So when a relationship is There's no love, there's no There are no feelings. Well, of course there may be not be positive. So they are negative feelings So when we have this empty feeling within a relationship, we feel that there's nobody loving us or caring or bothered about us. And if there's a problem, then problem on our own. So it is. And the relationship is completely and totally hollow or empty. A hollow sound is an empty the mouth of a cave and you Oh, the noise reverberates or bounces off the walls because it is empty. Okay. And that's the the feeling when you have a problem and you've got a hollow relationship, you might as well be talking to yourself because the echo will come back because nobody is listening. Same way with fake. The next word fake. When a relationship is fake, it Okay. So it's something that it really Okay. So if somebody tries to present a relationship as a good relationship, but in reality it's not, then it's a fake relationship. If they try to present that they they are a couple that care or But deep down, both parties to the relationship know that the relationship is not really a true relationship. Then it is fake. And fake is a copy something Like you, you're a fake Yeah. So you copy some famous painting and try to sell it as the original? Of course it's not. So it is a fake. It's something that it isn't. So you you can do all you like. You can airbrush a photograph, it, but it's not the original. So it's going to be fake. So relationships can be fake. They can be false dishonest. When a relationship is refer to the person. If he or she is dishonest, it means they are not being true to their word. Yeah, so they tell you something, but then they break their promise. They tell you something, then they they tell somebody else something different. So they are being dishonest and between two people. If it's supposed to be a loving rules, those unwritten rules of honesty between the two parties. If somebody is being dishonest, or they might say, of course I love you. Or of course we can do that. Of course you can do that. But in reality they mean something else than they are being dishonest. And again, this is honest. The word adding the prefix d I of words we had dysfunctional dishonest spelled d I s prefix Turns that into the negative So dishonest. Weak. The relationship is weak. Well then it's the opposite of any sign of trouble. So if you don't have a strong relationship, how are you going to get over any troubles, financial troubles, work related troubles, just general relationship troubles. You know, we all go through but if the relationship is any of those pressures. If the relationship is weak, It's not really worth anything. Okay, so weak means something cannot stand any pressure. And when the pressure comes, the relationship will collapse or it will break because it is fundamentally weak. Stable. A stable relationship is It is even. It's not up and down. Okay. It's a stable. Yeah. We get through life because we have built stability around our lives, stability in relation to our working life, stability in relation to our employment, stability in relation to our how we relate to our family and above all, stability in our personal relationships. So something that is rocky goes Or like this. A rocky table moves from side to side, but something stable is even. It's flat. You know exactly where you are. Now, of course, in most relationships gets a little bit boring if it's stable all the time and there's no little sign of excitement. So from time to time you have to jizz and jazz up the relationship a little bit and introduce a little bit of excitement. That's okay. That's what people expect. But it doesn't take away from the fact that there is genuine stability in the relationship, stable, even something that can survive the ups and downs of life, and particularly in the modern life. And then finally, solid is a bit Solid is dependable. Okay, the table is solid, the So when something is solid and you're built on a solid foundation, then the relationship will withstand pressure points. It will be able to survive the survive their disagreement. The financial crisis. Whatever the crisis, that will that's all about relationships. And remember, this is about adjectives relating to relationships. I'm not giving you relationship I'm the last one to do that. But it's about the English, the describe the relationships that friends or work colleagues. So let me give them to you one Supportive. Distant, tight knit, caring, Tense. Dysfunctional. Insincere. Hollow. Fake. Dishonest. Weak. Stable and finally solid. As always. And as I always say, if you want to contact me in relation to anything to make some comments or some suggestions for future lessons, and you can do so on www.englishlessonviaskype.com I read them, I listen to them, and I'll certainly include any suggestions that are worth including. And as always, if you or any family member or friends you think want to have English lessons to improve your conversational English, or whether it's to prepare for an exam like IELTS or CAE, or to prepare for that very, very important first or second stage job interview with an international company. Well, you know where we are. We've got lots of teachers And indeed, if you want a free in the form, send it to us, and As always, we really, really to subscribe to the channel. We really appreciate it when you seeing you again soon.