What Kinds of Words Can Be Used to Praise Young Ladies?

When I took apart in the Orientation several days ago at Stony Brook University, I met a kind teacher there. At that time, we had a warm talk with each other, which mainly focused on the new living of new international students at Stony Brook.

During our chat, we touched the topic of how to learn English well. She told me that for international students, especially like me, it would cost us more than one year to learn oral and speaking English well. For those who stay with Chinese students, although they have lots of opportunities to learn English, but if they don’t have self-consciousness to improve their English, they still have a long way to go.

By accident, we talked about how to praise the beauty young ladies. I firstly told her that I already had several words and phrases to express it. Among them, they are “charming,” “beautiful,” “nice,” “fabulous,” “lovely,” and so on.

I thought it was easy for me to list several words, however, her answers really made me a great cultural shock. She explained the words I mentioned one by one, step by step, and I realized that “charming” can only be used for praising the smile, which could not be used for expressing the beauty of young ladies. At least, it was not proper.

Then I realized that although I had recited lots of English words and phrases, I still need to put them in the proper context. Otherwise, it was not still inappropriate to use them.