How to Describe a Picture in English - Spoken English Lesson
In this lesson, you can learn how to describe a picture in English.
Describing a picture is useful in many English exams; you need to describe images in English for exams like FCE, TOEIC or PTE. Do you have an exam coming up? Get study advice from a professional teacher here: bit.ly/ooe-teachers.
It’s also a good way to practise your general English skills. Take an interesting picture, and try to describe it in English. You can practise your speaking and learn some new English vocabulary!
In this lesson, you can learn how to describe a picture in English in clear, detailed language. We’ll show you how to build an answer step-by-step.
See the full version of this lesson on our website: www.oxfordonlineenglish.com/d....
Contents:
1. How to Summarise What You See 0:48
2. How to Describe Where Things Are 2:38
3. Adding Detail to Your Description 4:37
4. Speculating About the Picture 7:08
5. Speculating About the Context of the Picture 10:15
6. Making a Longer Answer 12:06
This lesson will help you:
- Learn how to make a summary of what you see.
- Use more detail when you describe a picture in English.
- Understand how to explain where things are in the picture.
- Learn how to speculate, or make assumptions, when describing a picture.
- Make guesses about the context of a picture.
- Create longer answers when you describe a picture in English.
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A big thank you to the Alphabet translation team from Syria for the Arabic captions!
Hi Michel, My answer for the last photo is in below: The picture shows two girls who are sitting at the table of a coffee shop in one of the busiest streets and chatting together. It seems that they are talking about something funny as their body languages are quite excited. From what I can find of the photo, it should a cold day as they covered each other under a thick sheet. I believe, the photo was taken by one of their friends who wanted to join soon and found them pretty happy while they were smiling. So she/he decided to take a photo of them as a good memory of that occasion. There are also a couple of items on the table like two bottles of water with two straws inside. There is also a flower right in the middle of the table. Most probably, they have done some shopping are sitting to get fresh and start shopping again! :)
Thanks for watching and sharing, Farzad! Here are some corrections for you: 1) '...their body language is...,' not, '...their body languages are...' 2) 'From what I can see in the photo...' not, 'find of'. 3) '...it might be a cold day,' not, 'should'. Hope this is useful for you!
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The picture shows two girls sitting at a table in a cafe, looking very happy. In the middle of the picture, we have two girls holding a warm cup of coffee in their hands and having a good time laughing and talking with each other. In the foreground, we can see some things on the table, like two bottles of water, some plates and flowers. In the background, we can see a few people walking around, although we can't really recognize their faces because it's blurry and the picture only focuses on the two girls. You can see that they are pretty close to each other so I suppose that they are best friends. They are both sitting outside and sharing a scarf so it may be the end of autumn or the beginning of winter. The picture takes place in a cafe in some city and the photographer could be a third person/friend sitting with them or even a professional photographer since the picture looks really detailed.
Hi Mimosa, thanks for watching and sharing your answer. You wrote a fantastic response, great job!
Vers schön
In the picture, there are two beautiful girls sitting at a table in a cafe.They are talking to each other and drinking hot coffee. They look very happy .In the background, there are some people walking around though we can't see their face In the foreground,we can see some plates,two water bottles and some flowers on the table. I suppose that they are best friend and they have met to each other after a long time. They are sharing a woollen scarf so it must be the winter season. May be the picture has taken from the next corner of the cafe focusing the two beautiful girls by a professional photographer.
@@Oxfordonlineenglish1 hi
We cant tell if the cup is warm
i'm going to have an oral exam next week and you both really helped me a lot with this Video! Many greetings from Germany ;)
Oral exam..LOL.and anal exam? Xd just kidding
Dario Kosanovic jajajajaj que genio
@@dariokosanovic3389 what the heck
@@dariokosanovic3389 tbh oral sounds like its really inspired by anal
How was it?
"Finished? I don't think so" thanks for the trust...anyway....great video. I'm going to share this with my friends.
Great! Thanks for watching.
Yee
It's a wonderful lesson I have ever seen. It is very important for competitive exams. Please make more video like this. Thanks.
Thank you so much Kasia & Michael for this great lesson, also in Celpip speaking exam there is a question to describe a picture thank you both very useful.
Glad it was useful for you!
Yes, it is very useful, thank you, there is another question called prediction, predict what will happen next in a picture, can you please help with this question, teach me some phrases, I will be so thankful for you.
I listen to this lesson with great pleasure.
This video was really helpful. both of you were explaining details with so much precision. hope that i am also going to do that as good as you did infront of my whole class tomorrow morning,I feel so much weight on me cause I am practically the only that is gonna pass by cause of my great English skills.
Thank you now I can pass my german englisch exam :3
Hey I'm igcse student and i had a speaking mock exam today . I just want to thank you because i got in the photo card 14 out of 15 and my teacher told me my description was perfect and all i did to use your technique 💞
That's great news, Mariem! We're so glad you found the lesson helpful!
The technique was very helpful
Thank you for the knowledge that you give.
thanks for your advice !! I am going to do test in the next week so it's very helpful for me!! love u 3000 from VietNam
I do not have words to express my feelings for both of you guys. I am praying for your good health and wealth. Your contribution is priceless and you deserve an Oscar from my side. ❤🎉 Stay blessed.
that does not make any sence
Thank you, both for your lesson! you are wonderful to explain. I really need to learn how to describe a picture. Once more, thank you very much.
Thank you very much. It's done very professionally and, at the same time, very easy to understand.
Thank you for watching and so glad it was easy to understand!
THANK YOU FOR GIVING US MANY INFORMATION... I love your lessons
exactly
I'm an ESL teacher and I'd just like to say a big thank you for this video, it's just the ticket:)
Bundle of thanks Mam and Sir u both are giving us gd information about english language. ALLAH GIVES U GREAT AWARD OF THIS GD WORK.
quite useful and thorough! Well done! Thanks
Hat auch jemand morgen die Englisch Sprachprüfung ?😂
Julian Zimmermann yesss
Auch Schleswig-Holstein?😅
Julian Zimmermann hahaha nein Bayern
Ich auch, aber in Berlin xD
Heute schon....😕🤨🤣
Thank you so much good job
Really good results within the video in my linguistics and so quickly! . great.
Highly informative. Thank you Kasia and Michael
these lessons are so good ! thanks !
wer auch Englisch Sprachprüfung morgen hat oder Deutsch ist liken
Montag habe ich
Ja, morgen lul
Lul hab heute
Und was ist, wenn beides zutrifft?😉
Hab ich nicht, aber ich lerne das jetzt einfach mal so.
This is a fantastic video. I am using it with my students and it works really well. Thanks a lot.
I learned so much from your video.Continue your channel by giving such type of knowledge.
Thank you so much,both of you I learned a lot from you, Keep going the good work that you doing, and i appreciate your. Am from Somalia ❤️❤️❤️❤️
So glad the lesson was helpful for you, Abdullahi!
Hello Micheal and Kasia. I am an english teacher at Carducci Primary School in Reggio Emilia. We are writing a message together, now, with my class, just to say"thanks!" My students (8/9 years old) were very happy with this video and found it very useful. Here's a descritption for the last picture: "There are two girls sitting at a bar table. They are in the foreground, drinking a cup of coffee. The girls look very happy and they're are smiling to each other. I suppose they are very good friends or they can be sisters. The picture must be taken by their mother, or a friend of them." Greetings from Reggio Emilia, Italy. Teacher Nicola and 3°A.
Thanks, Nicola! We're so happy that you found the lesson useful. Thank you for sharing your response. Here are some tips to help the response to be even better: 1) '...or they could be sisters,' not, 'can.' 2) The picture must have been taken by...' not, 'must be taken.' Hope this helps you!
They're only 8/9 years old and they understood the video? Woah.. I'm 14 and my teacher said this video was probably too difficult for us to understand.. just saying
In the wonderful, spectacular view you can see tourists dragging their feet behind themselves. In the foreground there are two adorable friends having an nice chat with a nice hot tea or coffee. In the distance you can also see that they are out of focus as they are not the main focus on this image. I think the photographer is very professional as it is a beautiful view.
The video in the background is perfect . thanks a lot .
it's very helpful for me to discribe any photo it's also very useful because it has subtitles in many languages so thanks from India
This is soooo helpful, thx!!!!
What a thorough lesson on picture description. Impressive 🙂
Thank you so much Awesome lesson
I liked this channel very much.Anything I search for on KZhead regarding the English language, I can find it on this site and in an organized, simple and understandable way of explaining it.
Гр
7г
I liked this channel you all teach us with details wich we need to express about our ideas without hesitation..thanks a lot
Thanks just 3 months ago i started to study with your videos and larned a lot. thanks you came back.
So glad they are helpful for you, Julio!
Could you make more vídeos talking about other topics,Please?These videos are really useful and great! Thank you so much
Glad you find them useful, Eduardito! We will try to make more similar videos in the future, but for now we also have this one you might like: www.oxfordonlineenglish.com/describe-people-english.
one of the best method to practice english and a right way to learn and speaking language...i really need this type of video...Thanks to this channel
I am doing my oral test tomorrow about describing places, for me it's a little complicated talk about some picture, but with this video, I consider that is more easylier :D Thanks for the ideas
how was your exam?
Very useful and easy to understand, I can learn a lot. Thank you!
I have learned a lot.*
Thank you! This video is really helpful!!
So I'm doing my homework and this is very helpful thank you
Amazing guys, thank you so much for your help. This is very useful for the APTIS test. Regards from Colombia.
I able to understand picture reading after watching your videos and now improve interest in picture reading. Thank you and your team giving this videos and I will don't forget your support in speaking and learning .
this is so helpful thank you 🙏
It was a very interesting english lesson! Now I have understand the rules for a picture discrub
A great tutorial. Your pronunciation is clear. Thanks a million.
This was absolutely useful🙌 Thank you so much!
This video is so helpful! Thank you.
Super useful for my DET! Thanks a million!
Thank you soo much Kasia and Michael for this lesson.It was very useful to me. OOE is the best way for me and i'v learned a lot from your videos.Thanks a lot.
Thanks!
This website is very helpful in my English lesson actually I think this website is no1 in world
This video is super useful for me to do the speaking part of the aptis exam. Thank you so much for making the video.
So glad you found it useful, Binh! Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much for your enlightenment on this topic, I have learned a lot from this video Here is my response for the picture you gave us at the end of the video: This is a picture of two girls who are sitting side by side while sharing the same scarf on their shoulders. In the foreground of this image, I can see a round table with a fashionable colour, there are two bottles of white drinks and some white dishes around , there are also a blue box with some purple flowers on the top. In the middle of the picture, two girls are both looking at each other with cheerful smiles on their faces, they must have a very deep friendship or they have just experienced something fabulous together. Both of them are holding a cup of hot coffee in their hands which shows that it might be a cold day today but they are so enjoyable under this temperature. In the background of this image, there is an European style building, so I suggest that this picture must be taken in Europe. The photographer who took the picture only wanted to capture the emotion of these two girls, that's why there are some people who are walking on the street with unclear faces.
Thanks for sharing a fantastic response, Joanna! Here are some corrections for you: 1) '...around. There is also a blue box...' not, '...around , there are also a blue box...' 2) If you're talking about the same two girls from the beginning of your description, it is helpful to mention: '...middle of the picture, the two girls are both...' not, '...middle of the picture, two girls are both...' 3) '...but they are so comfortable in this temperature...' or, '...but they are really enjoying this temperature...' not, '...but they are so enjoyable under this temperature...' Hope this is useful for you!
This lesson was veru useful for me, specially for preparation to IELTS exam. Thank you.
Very*
Thanks for this useful video!❤
Thank you so much.. it helped me to clear my assessment. I got my job
really a great way of teaching. Thanx OOE team.
Indeed
Yo
Hi, I really want to thank you guys the effort you put into these educational videos. It is just amazing. Here it is my answer. In the picture there are two people sitting together, one in front the other, in the middle there is a wooden table, on the table there are several items such as some glasses , tea pots, a dish with a cookie on it and a small plant. They might be a couple, they seem to be unhappy or irritared, probably they are in the middle of an uncomfortable silence moment. Thank you
Thanks for this Video. In two weeks i have my speaking launch test in english. And this Video helps me a lot Thanks 🙏
Thank you for knowledge...
Thank you so much for this great lesson. This imagine shows two girls sitting around a table. They are looking each other. They are young and they have long blond straight hairs and they're thin. They're wearing a jumper and they have a blanket on their shoulders. For that reason I can understand that it's cold. The girl on the left is holding a cup of tee on her hands. It look warm. In the foreground there is a table and we can see two bottles of water and a little bunch of flowers on it. In the background the picture is blurry but I can see the street and peolpe walking or talking each other, so I think there is a city centre. Someone has taken this photo, for this reason I think there is another person with them, maybe one of their friends.
Hi Martina, thanks for watching and sharing. Here are a few corrections: 1) 'This image', not, 'imagine'. 2) '...long, blond straight hair,' not, '... blond straight hairs'. 3) '...cup of tea in her hands. It looks warm,' not, '...cup of tee on her hands. It look warm'. Hope this helps you!
Hi Michael and Kasia thanks a lot for this amazing video great job 👍
Great comment
It was really useful. THANK YOU
Thank you so much . This video was soooo usefull for me . Good job!
Thank you for helping me, i have learned something new today
Nice, Sam! Thanks for sharing!
Really interesting Video. You helped me very much! Thanks for this. Tomorrow I've my oral exam I must lean all the time... I'm very exited😳
thanks for that Oxford English. I am from Turkey. I am preparing for my final English exam which is tomorrow. This video is the best for this topic. Thanks.
Good luck, Ramazan!
the video shows two very helpful persons. thank you so much
You're welcome, Myriam! Thanks for watching.
It took me 80mins for watching this 15mins video lol. But I indeed learnt a lot!! Thank you teachers :)
ye same to me
So, thanks a lot! I really like your lessons) Good luck with your videos)
Useful lessons teacher Thank you very much.
thanks for this video🙇 It's so helpful
Thanks so much... Really useful as I'm preparing for IELTS. Specially your way of teaching and explaining the thing is mind blowing.thnks guys
So glad you found it useful, Dhiraj!
I have never seen this channel. I found his entertaining way of teaching English fantastic. I am already a subscriber to your channel, congratulations on your excellent work. I'm from Cuba and my name is Josué Leroy
wow! This was really helpful and made a huge diffrence. Thank you so much guys!!
Thanks for awesome videos ....great job..
Hi Michel, My answer for the first photo is in below: At the top of the picture we can see some clouds. In the foreground there are a pair of glasses and a sun cream pot. On the left there is a water bottle without label There are also a liitle shell close to the water bottle and a hat next to the sun cream pot.. Thanks a million!
Thanks for sharing! Here are a few suggestions for you: 1) '...there is a pair of glasses...' not, 'are.' 2) '...without a label,' not, '...without label.' 3) 'There are also little shells...' or, 'There is also a little shell...' not, 'There are also a liitle shell.' Hope this helps you!
@@Oxfordonlineenglish1 Linal yasiru
Thank you for sharing this lesson! This is so useful for me to prepare in my english class tommorow. This is my example to describe the latest photo. The picture shows two girls who is sitting together. In the foreground, there are so many things on the table like two bottles of the water. In the background, there are so many people walk on the road. I think this photo was taken in front of the cafe by the professional photographer. I might this photographer is their another friend. Two girls must be happy and staring to each other because they order same menu. Maybe the weather is very cold so they are sharing the scraft together.
Thanks for sharing your answer, Richa! Glad the lesson was helpful for you. Here are a few suggestions for you: 1) '...two girls who are sitting together,' not, 'is'. 2) '...so many people walking...' not, 'walk'. 3) 'This photographer might be their friend,' not, 'I might this photographer is their another friend'. Hope this is useful for you!
@@Oxfordonlineenglish1 thank you for the correction! I was hesitant to use 'walk' or 'walking' before. Thank you!❤
I really enjoyed this song, especially the meaning, I think everyone should listen to this every day. Thank you Leonardo from Einstein
I'll have an exam tomorrow . Thanks for your videos. They are really useful for me ^^
Me too 😂😂
thank you lot for this video, it is very interesting. Please I am from Algeria. how I can do PET exam online ( thank you
I have Pet exam in a few months and I really want to describe pictures beautifully but I can’t, so I watched your video and i think it will help me. thank you❤
I’m preparing for PET and it really helped me kisses from Brazil 🇧🇷❤️❤️
And is it a dog or a cat?
Very clear,I am easily understanding with interesting watched, thanks.
Nice lesson! thanks a lot!
2:16 2:45 details 3:18 4:00 5:15 important details 7:08 speculating 7:59 8:48 9:34 10:16 speculating 2 10:46 11:25 12:23 summary 12:39 longer answer 13:56
22
Thank you❤
Thanks dude
Very useful video...thank you teachers.
Thank you! So much! 😍
Keep doing these videos guys. You guys are 👍. Thank you very much.
Thanks for the support, Ranjith! Glad you enjoyed it!
I ll have tomorrow my exam. this video is really helpfull. thank you👍
Me too !!
Thank you so much, I can use that for my school lesson.
I really love all your videos, just thank you soooo much 🙏🙏❤❤
You're welcome, Tesnim! Thanks for watching.
I'm a student. This video is very helpful for us. Thank you for making this video.
Thank you for this video, my answer for the last photo is below: In the picture I can see two teenage girls who are sitting at a table next to each other. I think they are outside, because I can see some passengers and a building in the background. I suppose they're at a coffee shop. On the table are some red and pink flowers and two bottles of water. I think they're made of glass. They both got light, short hair. They are holding white cups, I suppose they're drinking coffee or tea. I guess it is a cold day, because they've got a white and red blanket over their shoulders. They are looking very happy.
Thank you for sharing! Excellent response. Here are some corrections for you: 1) A 'passenger' is someone inside of a vehicle. Did you mean 'pedestrians,' or, 'people walking by'? 2) 'They both have light...' not, 'They both got'. Hope this is useful for you!
Thank you sir for such a informative video. Sir as a beginner i learn a lot from these videos.
The picture shows there are two young girls on the outside of a cafe somewhere in a city or town. In the foreground, there are two drinking bottles with black colour straws on the table, there is a bunch of chrysanthemum in the centre of the table. It must be the winter because some people in the background are wearing heavy coats. I suppose they're probably having hot chocolate because they both are holding a white cup tight with their bare hands, and they are also sharing a scarf, although they had had thick coats. I don't know who they are, either they were colleagues or friends or even sisters, It does not matter. One thing I am sure is that they enjoy their moment because they are looking at each other with a big smile. This picture reminds me a good friend of mine and some of the joyful moments that we have together. It makes me smiled when I am seeing this full of happiness pictures. Thank you for the lesson. It is very usfull.
Hi Cuihua, thanks for watching and sharing your answer. Here are a few corrections for you: 1) 'There are a bunch of chrysanthemums...' not, 'there is a bunch of chrysanthemum'. 2) 'It must be winter,' not, 'the winter'. 3) '...although they have thick coats,' not, 'had had'. Hope this helps you!
Really explain very good, I don't understand the english perfectly but I understand all the video without the necessary of use the traductor and I can was practice my listen and learn tips for describe pictures more detailed