"beautiful"means a lot to Chinese too. '漂亮piao4 liang4'means physically beautiful,for people who are beautiful,the beautiful things（perhaps have varied colores.）,beautiful animals and so on.Everything you think is beautiful,it's<漂亮>In oral,you can also say<干得漂亮 gan4de1piao4liang4>which means <you've done a great job> and<美丽 mei3li4>also means beautiful,but is more used in paper.and when you want to say a man is nice,has a good heart,you can say he has a<美丽的>heart. hope this can help you. hope you can make a progress in Chinese,too.

To chinese girls it seems to mean pale and with big eyes...

the same. beautiful means pretty, use to describe a girl a woman

漂亮 normally for person, or express as "perfect". 美丽 for girls. beautiful girl 美丽的姑娘 for a nice place or city, 美丽的城市 hope can it will helpful to you. If u want, add me as your friends. See u soon! Regards! sonia

I know you want to know about our Chinese views about that. I can only give you my own view. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As I was young, I liked good looking girls, because they look beautiful and sexy. As I was growing, I liked girls with good eyes and sweet smiles, because they are like little beautiful flowers, who seem to be protected carefully. Then, I was going to like girls with independent ideas and a good soul, because everybody is going older and going to die one day. What is the most important and not easily changeable to me is the soul. Independent ideas are like magic to me. With such a person I could talk in the soul. Well, that's my view. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Besides, I want to tell you that people are same, no matter where they come from, after many years abroad. You know, I mean the soul things. But why we are so different, that's because of prejudice. See people, just see their souls. A little far from your topic. :-) Anyway, the most beautiful things to me are the good souls and profound ideas (morality+wisdom).