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  • Hi, everyone.

  • In today's lesson we're going to look at Chinese astrology, and I'm going to teach you adjectives

  • that you can use to describe a personality.

  • Now, to do this lesson, you don't have to believe in astrology and you don't have to

  • be that much interested in astrology either.

  • If you do like astrology like I do, then it's even better because you'll learn something

  • about astrology and also some really useful vocabulary for you to use.

  • The way this lesson is organized is that the animals in Chinese astrology are like the

  • signs in Western astrology, and people have different animals to represent them.

  • So, in Chinese astrology, what they do is put the animals into different groups, and

  • there are five groups.

  • We start here with the earth signs, then the wood signs, the fire signs, and later we have

  • the water signs, and the metal signs.

  • And what you can do now is check: Which animal represents you in Chinese astrology?

  • So you just check the year that you were born, and that will show you what animal describes

  • your personality.

  • First of all, we'll start with the ox.

  • The ox is my sign in Chinese astrology.

  • And we don't have any oxes here in England, but the closest thing to an ox would be, like,

  • a big cow or a bull, but we don't have them over here.

  • So, what would describe the ox's personality is to say somebody who is reliable, hardworking,

  • strong, and stubborn.

  • If you think about a...

  • If you...

  • If you imagine the picture of an ox in your head, they have a big, strong body, so they're

  • physically strong, they're reliable, you can trust them to do the work that you need them

  • to do.

  • Even if an ox is tired in the field from working, the ox is so strong that it will continue

  • working.

  • And an ox is also stubborn.

  • It will not...

  • If it's decided what it wants to do, it will not change its mind.

  • And one of my mom's dogs is very, very stubborn for a dog.

  • If I take him for a walk, he decides where he wants to go, and he always want to go to

  • the same park so he can play with his ball.

  • If I try to take him somewhere else, he just stands there and he's so heavy to move, he

  • won't move.

  • He's really, really stubborn.

  • He wants to go to the park, and that's it.

  • He'll just stand like that until I take him to the park.

  • Next animal is the dragon.

  • The dragon is...

  • Well, it's not a real animal, or is it?

  • I don't know.

  • It's not a real animal, but it's confident, imaginative, dazzling, and fiery.

  • So, dragon personalities, dragon people have so much charisma and energy in their personality.

  • Other people look at the dragon as someone that's amazing and unusual in lots of ways.

  • And I heard once, but I don't know if it's true-let me know if it is true in the comments-that

  • in China the years that are the dragon years, many parents want to have a child born in

  • a dragon year, so I heard that there are small baby booms every dragon year.

  • Let me know if you know if that's true.

  • So, a confident person is the opposite of shy, they know what they want, they can go

  • for what they want.

  • An imaginative person, they have many ideas and they think of things first before other people.

  • They're dazzling.

  • Usually we say lights are dazzling when they...

  • They're bright, but they move a bit in your eye, we say: "Oh, it's dazzling", and the

  • dragon dazzles us because it's so amazing.

  • And also the dragon is fiery.

  • Obviously a dragon can breathe fire on us, and in that way the dragon is fiery, but people

  • who are fiery, they have quite a strong temper.

  • You don't want to...

  • You don't want that dragon to be angry with you because you might get scared.

  • Next we have the sheep.

  • People who are born in the Year of the Sheep, we could call them innocent, patient, humble,

  • and conformist people.

  • So, if you think in your head, imagine...

  • Imagine a scene with some sheep in the countryside on the farm with the shepherd, their lives

  • are very innocent in the field.

  • We look at them, they look like fluffy clouds, they always...

  • You never see a sheep looking angry or in a different mood; they always look the same.

  • And especially if we think about young sheep, which are called lambs, lambs are often in

  • religious stories and lambs are a symbol of innocence.

  • And lambs are sometimes a symbol for Jesus as well.

  • So, when the lamb gets older into the sheep, it's not so innocent, but it has a lot of

  • the gentleness of the sheep.

  • A sheep is also patient, it's just in the field, it has nowhere to go and not really

  • a lot to do, so it can wait a long time for the things that it wants.

  • It's humble.

  • The best way to describe "humble" is to describe the opposite.

  • The opposite of humble is someone who has a lot of pride and they think that they're

  • so important, and they think that they're the best at everything, whereas humble is...

  • A humble person would be somebody who lives a simple life, they don't think that they're

  • really special and really important, much like the sheep, but you can also say that

  • sheep are very conformist.

  • They all do the same thing as each other.

  • "What's that sheep doing?

  • I better do it, too.

  • That sheep's going over there, I'll go over there, too."

  • So the sheep follow each other.

  • They don't like to be different from the group.

  • Or we could say about the sheep, they don't like to think different things.

  • They want to all be thinking the same thing as the other sheep.

  • Next we have the Year of the Dog.

  • Someone born in the Year of the Dog is a loyal person, they are protective, they're friendly,

  • and hierarchical.

  • So we say in English, talking about dogs, that they're man's best friend.

  • They're so loyal.

  • Sometimes when a...

  • When an owner has had a very, very close bond with their dog, but the owner dies because

  • they're elderly, for example, sometimes the dog is so loyal that the dog will go to sit

  • on the grave of their owner who died.

  • Okay, it doesn't happen every day, but it has...

  • It has happened that some dogs are so loyal that they remember forever their owner who

  • has died.

  • They're protective, we know that because dogs guard our houses, they stop burglars coming

  • in, and they bark loudly if somebody...

  • Somebody comes in your house who shouldn't be there.

  • They're friendly, you know, dogs always wag their...

  • Wag their tails, don't they?

  • And they're hierarchical, which means I'm top dog, I'm the boss, and then the other

  • dogs in the pack, they will be at different levels.

  • I saw some...

  • I saw some stray...

  • A saw a community of stray dogs from my house when I was living in Turkey, and it was really

  • interesting to watch them because they would have food there, people would tuck food in this...

  • Well, what was it?

  • It was a piece of unused land where the dogs had gone in under the fence and they had taken

  • over.

  • It was dog city there, but they did have some food.

  • And when I would watch them I found out that the top dog, the boss of the dogs, that dog

  • was the only dog that ate the food, and what he would leave would be...

  • The dog underneath him could...

  • After he was gone, the dog underneath him could come and eat something, but all the

  • other dogs, and there were probably about 20 of them, could only watch them eat.

  • And they were always shaking and scared.

  • So, in the dog society, only one dog got to eat.

  • And it made me think about the way humans live as well, as I reflected on dog society.

  • Okay, so now let's look at the wood signs.

  • The tiger, and people born in the Year of the Tiger, are fierce people.

  • They are wild, they are regal, and aggressive.

  • So a lot of these words, they make us think about how...

  • We think about the tiger attacking, because the tiger is probably the most scary of all

  • animals you could find in a jungle, because you'd probably become the lunch of the tiger.

  • It's so fierce.

  • It has big claws that it can kill its prey with or kill you with, if you're in the wrong place. It's wild.

  • A tiger is very different to the domestic cat, which we can stroke and we can...

  • Not all of them, but many of them, we can get close to the domesticated cat; whereas

  • a tiger, we must always be afraid of the tiger.

  • Not many...

  • Not many people in zoos can touch the tigers because they're the most...

  • One of the most fierce animals in the zoo.

  • Tigers are also regal, that has to do with...

  • Something to do with being royal.

  • Because they're so, so special, really, there's not many of them in the world, and I think

  • it could be because the tiger moves with so much elegance and also a tiger has...

  • The patterns on the tiger's...

  • The stripes.

  • The stripes or the zig-zags on the tiger's skin, they are so beautiful for the whole

  • animal kingdom, it's as special as an amazing...

  • An amazing outfit that a king or queen is wearing, so in that way a tiger is regal.

  • It's not...

  • It's so special.

  • It's not like an everyday animal.

  • Also aggressive.

  • The tiger can pounce on you and attack you.

  • People born in the Year of the Rabbit are sweet, caring, modest, and anxious.

  • If we think about rabbits, we think about the Easter Bunny, obviously that's very sweet,

  • we see the rabbits holding a basket of eggs maybe, with its nice ears and a little smiley face.

  • It's very sweet.

  • They're cute animals.

  • We like to...

  • We think they're adorable, we like to look at them.

  • Rabbits are caring in the sense that...

  • Well, I don't really...

  • I don't really know if rabbits are caring, but people who are born in the Year of the

  • Rabbit are caring people; they like to look after other people.

  • They're modest.

  • "Modest" means, similar to shy and similar to not making yourself really important and

  • really big.

  • So, a rabbit...

  • If a rabbit did something really special and amazing, the rabbit is modest, so it wouldn't

  • tell everybody about it.

  • They wouldn't say: "Oh, guess what I did?"

  • Or: "Did you hear what I did?"

  • They're modest, so they keep their...

  • They keep their achievements and the good things about them, they don't tell everyone.

  • Also, of course, the rabbit and people born in the Year of the Rabbit are anxious people.

  • If we think about what happens when you surprise a bunny in the road, the bunny gets so shocked

  • that it can't move.

  • We say: "Like a rabbit in the headlights, in the headlights of a car."

  • So shocked it can't move.

  • And some people are like that as well, they're so anxious that they freeze and they can't

  • speak.

  • Next we have the fire signs.

  • We have the snake.

  • People born in the Year of the Snake are philosophical, elegant, and two-faced.

  • If we think about the snake in mythology or famous stories, what comes to mind to me straight

  • away is the snake in the Garden of Eden, and the snake was the animal that went to Eve

  • and told her about the tree of knowledge.

  • So, the snake is...

  • I've put philosophical there because what the snake knows...

  • It isn't just that the snake's intelligent, the snake thinks about things on a level of

  • philosophy or on a level of religion, a sort of...

  • A sort of higher level of ideas and thinking than most people use in their everyday life.

  • The snake is also elegant.

  • If we think about handbags and shoes that are often made from snakeskin, and the way

  • a snake looks very shiny.

  • But I don't know if you've ever touched a snake, it can really surprise you the way

  • it actually feels, because when you touch a snake it feels really muscular and strong.

  • It can surprise you because it looks slimy and wet, but it isn't.

  • And also the snake person can be described as two-faced.

  • You can't really trust the snake, they might say this to you, but really be thinking something

  • else; or really say something else to someone else.

  • Like the snake that I mentioned in the Bible story, that snake was...

  • What the snake said to Eve had very, very big consequences in the religion.

  • So, some people would say you couldn't...

  • You couldn't trust the snake in that situation.

  • And this is why we have sayings, like...

  • We can describe someone who is a traitor, somebody that we can't trust, we know we can't

  • trust, we can call them a snake in the grass.

  • "A snake in the grass" is they're there, they haven't done anything yet, they haven't attacked,

  • but they're just waiting there, and one day they might do something where they show that

  • they're a traitor and you can't trust them.

  • Just thinking about it now, I would say that all signs have a good side and a bad side

  • to them.

  • I know that it makes it sound like the snake is the only bad one.

  • That's not true; they all have positive and negative sides to them.

  • So, whatever you think of when you consider those animals in your mind, when you see a

  • picture of them, those meanings can be true as well, whether they're positive meanings

  • or negative meanings.

  • Let's do the last two signs now.

  • Now we've got our final signs to look at.

  • We have the metal signs and the water signs.

  • The metal sign animals are monkey and rooster.

  • I'll talk you through monkey now.

  • So, if you were born in the Year of the Monkey, I could describe you as quick-witted, agile,

  • funny, and cheeky.

  • Quick-witted, we could just remove the word "witted", a quick person is like intelligent,

  • someone who thinks very fast.

  • When we say "quick-witted", it adds...

  • It adds a little something to "quick".

  • Someone who is quick-witted, they would think of clever jokes to say, maybe word play, and

  • they would have a clever sense of humour.

  • I think that's how "witted" is a little bit different to just "quick".

  • Agile, if we think about monkeys, they are climbing and swinging off things all the time.

  • I know a little girl who's born in the Year of the Monkey, and she's always...

  • She climbs on...

  • She climbs on furniture and she'll climb up on things, and she's just a really good climber.

  • She doesn't have any accidents when she climbs up on things.

  • She's very active.

  • She likes doing trampolining, and ice-skating, or climbing, so she's constantly moving around,

  • and that...

  • I didn't know she was born in the Year of the Monkey at first, but it came up in conversation

  • and I could definitely...

  • I could definitely see it once I knew then; always climbing around and she does also make

  • funny faces, and play around, and she's a little bit cheeky, so that was someone who

  • I know that really describes...

  • Really expresses that personality of the monkey.

  • And someone who's cheeky, we have a phrase where we say: "Cheeky monkey."

  • If someone's a cheeky monkey, it's they...

  • They're doing something that's a little bit naughty, their behaviour is a little bit bad,

  • but the way they...

  • The way they smile while they're doing it makes you like them at the same time.

  • So: "Cheeky monkey" is a little bit naughty, but we forgive them for it and we quite like

  • it at the same time.

  • Next we have the rooster.

  • If you don't know what rooster is, this is the male chicken.

  • And he is...

  • He's a he, he can only be a he.

  • He's the leader, but yes...

  • The rooster can only be a he, but someone with the personality of rooster and born in

  • that year can also be a woman.

  • He is a leader, he is energetic, he is fashionable, and he is vain.

  • If we think about the chickens in the farmyard, there's one rooster and he's got his beautiful

  • feathers, and he has special colours in his feathers.

  • He has green and red feathers, and he walks around...

  • He walks around like this, and he has...

  • It depends how many hens there are, female chickens, but he could...

  • It could be him and it could be six hens, could be eight hens, and they're all his,

  • and they all just follow him around while he looks beautiful with his green and red

  • feathers.

  • So in that sense we can look at him as the leader, he's leading his...

  • His...

  • I don't know if there's a word for it, actually, it doesn't come to mind, but he's leading

  • all the other chickens there in that farmyard.

  • He wakes them up in the morning and he wakes everybody up with his: "Cock-a-doodle-doo".

  • Energetic.

  • Well, a rooster isn't running around all day.

  • In a way, he takes his time, so I'm actually not going to say energetic there.

  • I'm going to say he's busy.

  • He's busy just walking around, pecking the piece of something there, and he walks there,

  • and he walks back.

  • He's busy doing that, and he also has to wake everybody up in the morning.

  • But he isn't energetic because he's not running.

  • He's not stressing himself by doing all this work, so I think energetic is the wrong word

  • to describe him, really.

  • I would say busy instead.

  • I told you about his beautiful red and green feathers, so in that sense he's fashionable.

  • Okay, a real rooster is just born that way, but compared to other animals, it's an animal

  • that really stands out for its gorgeous colours that we see when we look at it.

  • Also the rooster is vain.

  • Perhaps when he's there in the farmyard, he's pecking in his feathers to make them all nice

  • so that he looks gorgeous.

  • He wants to look...

  • He wants to look gorgeous for all of his hens that follow him around.

  • Now let's look at the boar.

  • If you don't know what a boar is, a boar is like a wild pig, and it has the tusks.

  • So it's...

  • We don't see this animal a lot of the time, and there's not many places in Europe these

  • days, I think, not many countries where we still get this animal in the wild.

  • But I did hear that because it's quite fashionable to eat that kind of meat now, people like

  • to eat wild boar sausages and things like that, I did hear that some of these animals

  • have escaped from the farms and now live in the forests in England.

  • I've heard that.

  • I don't know if it's true.

  • If you know it's true, leave a comment.

  • So you have to be careful these days if you go into the forest because you might run into

  • a wild boar and it could be scary.

  • So, somebody who's born in the Year of the Boar is protective, fearless, alert, and pig-headed.

  • If you remember, we said that the dog is protective and the dog protects the home, protects his

  • master's home.

  • The way the boar is protective is a bit different because the boar is not going to protect the

  • farmer.

  • The boar will...

  • The wild boar protects its family, not being an expert on this, but I think what happens

  • is the females are the protective ones, and they protect their wild boar piglets.

  • And if you walked into the forest and the female wild boar was there with her piglets,

  • then she would want to attack you.

  • She's so protective.

  • That would be a scary situation for you to be in.

  • We can say they're fearless in the sense that the boar, when it's angry, will fight.

  • It doesn't matter if it's a farmer with a gun and he's got a big dog or something like that.

  • When the...

  • When the wild boar needs to, it will fight, so in that sense it's fearless.

  • I am...

  • It doesn't stop to think: "This is scary.

  • I could die."

  • It will react in the moment.

  • The wild boar is alert because...

  • One of the things about those animals is they avoid humans.

  • So if they hear you coming, they're more likely to hide and you won't...

  • You won't often see them.

  • There could be more than we realize because they avoid humans.

  • They just...

  • They hear that they're there, and they move away so that they don't come into contact.

  • And also, the wild boar is pig-headed.

  • Pig-headed is like bossy, telling the other pigs what to do and not listening to them.

  • So, in the...

  • If we imagine the forest, a pig-headed wild boar might be looking for some mushrooms in

  • the forest, and the other wild boar says: "There aren't any mushrooms here.

  • They're all gone.

  • We looked before.

  • They're all gone."

  • But the pig-headed wild boar would say: "I'm going to keep looking anyway.

  • I'm going to just keep looking all day long.

  • I'm not listening to you.

  • I'm in charge and I don't care what you say."

  • So someone born in the Year of the Boar is not going to listen to what other people say,

  • even if other people are right.

  • And that's because they can't admit that they're wrong about things.

  • And the last one is the rat.

  • People born in the Year of the Rat are adaptable, quick, crafty, and intelligent.

  • So, if we think about rats, they're adaptable because they can live in so many different places.

  • They will change themselves so that they can live in an environment, so that's why rats

  • live in the sewers where everything from the toilet goes, and that's why rats will live

  • behind garbage bins and anyplace where they can go.

  • If they find a place where they can live, they're happy and they will go there, as long

  • as there's food around.

  • Rats are quick.

  • They're quick moving, but also quick in the sense of intelligent, meaning the same thing.

  • And they're crafty in the way that...

  • If you imagine somebody has a problem with rats in their house, sometimes it's difficult

  • to remove the rats because they're so clever.

  • You might close the hole to stop the rats coming in, but then they surprise you and

  • come in a different way.

  • So in that way, a rat has a kind of...

  • A different kind of intelligence where they think sideways in a way, and they think of

  • it before you do.

  • They're a bit crafty.

  • And when someone is crafty, they also want to trick you and they enjoy that they know

  • something that you don't know.

  • So, now we have all the personalities represented by the animals, I'll just talk generally.

  • Do I think it's true, from my experience?

  • So, my sign is on the other side, isn't up here now.

  • My sign was the ox, and the ox was strong, hardworking, and stubborn, and reliable.

  • I think it describes me quite well actually, all of the adjectives that describe the ox.

  • I might not be physically strong, but I'm strong in other ways that you can't see.

  • I am hardworking.

  • I think we all have opposites inside us, so I'm really hardworking sometimes, and then

  • maybe there's a period of time where I'm not so hardworking.

  • Am I reliable?

  • Yes, most of the time.

  • And am I stubborn?

  • Yeah, I'm stubborn, but I know people who are more stubborn than me about certain things.

  • And I think that stubborn, you need to be...

  • If you're a hardworking person, you need to be stubborn...

  • You often need to be stubborn, because that's the reason you make time to do stuff.

  • Other people will want you to do things, and you'll say: "No, I have to do this now."

  • You're stubborn with them and you're stubborn with yourself when you've got your goals in

  • mind and things like that.

  • So, yeah, it really does describe me.

  • And in terms of other people I've known over the years, I remember what my...

  • What some of my boyfriends have been, and I had...

  • One of my boyfriends was a dragon, one was a rooster, and one was a rat, and yeah, it

  • really, really describes all the boyfriends as well that I had.

  • In terms of compatibility, the dragon was so charismatic and dazzling.

  • I don't think we were that compatible after a while, because ox is, like, more...

  • The ox is impressed by a dragon at the beginning, like: "Oh, wow, you're so dazzling", but after

  • a while, the ox cares about day-to-day practical things: "What are we going to do?" and things

  • like that, so dragon and...

  • In my experience, a dragon and an ox were not very compatible.

  • Rooster, yeah, the thing...

  • The thing...

  • I think it's like a theme in a relationship...

  • Relationships of someone who's an ox is that nobody else works as hard as the ox, so the

  • ox person can always look at other people, like: "Mm, I think you should work harder."

  • It can kind of bother you a bit.

  • So, a rooster is that kind of person who can be successful without working hard a lot of

  • the time.

  • So, that's good for them, but the ox only achieves things by working very hard, so they

  • don't understand it in a way as well.

  • And then the rat, it's not written here, but rat people are really, really social and definitely

  • clever, clever people.

  • Rat and ox get on quite well as friends, so yeah, in terms of people I've known in my

  • life, I definitely see...

  • I see substance in these Chinese astrology signs and groups, but I'm someone whose mind

  • works to look for the ways that it's true: "Yeah, you're like that because", you know,

  • I think about people and I'll try to find the reason that it's true.

  • So for you I don't know if it will seem like it's true for you.

  • You'll have to think about some people you know, ask them what year they were born, so

  • you can find out what they are.

  • So, there we are.

  • We've... What you can do now is do our quiz on these personality adjectives.

  • Thank you for watching and join me again soon. Bye.

Hi, everyone.

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B1 中級 英國腔

學會48個形容中國占星術人的英語形容詞 (Learn 48 adjectives in English to describe people with Chinese astrology)

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    No Name 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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