Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[yffjcn]

I get confused about the two words :character / characteristic
who can explain the difference between them .
thanks!

[cgage2]

You may find that a good dictionary will help.
To answer your question, the word character has several meanings.
It is a person in a play, novel or film. It is also used somewhat colloquially as word that refers to a person with some type of unusual or eccentric quality. It is often used in a comic or negative sense. "He's a character" (humorous). "He's a shady character" (negative).
A characteristic is is quality. Examples: a lion has aggressvie characteristics. A lamb has gentle characteristics.

[wintersweet]

I think some difficult might arise because of the use of "character" to mean "personal qualities." This definition of character is "all the qualities and features that make a person, groups of people, and places different from others."

In this case, the meaning is quite close to "characteristics." You may wish to look more at the examples at the online Oxford Learner's Dictionary, which is where I got the above examples. ( http://www.oup.com/oald-bin/web_getald7index1a.pl )

Examples:
Generosity is part of her character.
Generosity is one of her characteristics.

The character of the neighborhood hasn�t changed at all.
The characteristics of the neighborhood haven't changed at all.

This restaurant is boring; it has no character.
This restaurant is boring; it has no special characteristics.
("Characteristics" does not work well in this sentence unless you qualify it with an adjective.)
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wintersweet

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