Does the word "nice" refer to appearance? Or characteristic?
Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
As you know, the word "nice" can have different meanings depending on the context. In this case, we are dealing with a character who is "ugly" therefore the word "nice" is probably not referring to appearance. Instead, the duckling is trying to say that, despite his appearance, he is really "nice" So we can tell that he means characteristics. We can then think of "nice" here as similar to kind, or friendly, or even polite. Ex: Your new boyfriend is a really nice guy. Ex: It was very nice of your mom to drive me home.