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...