[Vocabulary] usage of sympathetic

[sieve]

"He's a very sympathetic person and great fun."
I found this sentence in the course book called Startout(upper int., p10).
It was marked as "wrong word" meaning some word is used incorrectly.
I assume that word should be "sympathetic" but I have found several examples on the internet, which prove the word "sympathetic" can be used as in the example above.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bhaisahab]

There is nothing wrong with that sentence.

 

[BobK]

I think some teachers used to worry about ESOL students always using ‘sympathetic‘ when their mother tongue - e.g. French/Spanish/Italian - uses sympathique/simpatico/a. English ‘sympathetic‘ can mean that, but it often doesn‘t. The sentence ‘He's a very sympathetic person and great fun" could be used to describe someone who was inclined to comfort people. Maybe the OP‘s teacher was marking the sort of exercise that requires the student to demonstrate understanding of a word by using it in a sentence - and ‘full of fun‘ isn‘t the primary meaning of sympathetic.

b

 

[sieve]

 

[MikeNewYork]

Describing someone as a sympathetic person is perfectly fine. It refers to general tendency.

 

[Tdol]

I think here the person probably means nice/friendly, though.

 

[bhaisahab]

I think here the person probably means nice/friendly, though.

With the context given in post #5, I agree. However, I believe that I was right in saying that there was nothing wrong with the sentence as presented in post #1.

 

[Tdol]

I agree- I was commenting on the fuller context.