Does "person" equal "individual" ?

In addition to the formality of "individual" that others have mentioned, that version can imply more annoyance. "Tom is a talkative person" COULD imply that he's too chatty or kind of annoying if it's said in a particular tone, but otherwise it could just be a relatively neutral description. But I think in most cases if I were talking to someone about Tom and they said "Tom is a talkative individual," I would take it to mean that they did not like him that much or found his chattiness annoying.

Some lesser-used meanings: *Individual* can also be used as an adjective, meaning separate or distinct. “Be sure to clean each individual toe when you wash your feet.” And sometimes, *person* can mean body. “Upon arresting Mr. Jones, did you perform a search of his person?”

yes, but i find “person” preferable to “individual.” “individual” has a bureaucratic feel to it.

Semantically, they mean the same thing, but 'person' is by far the common colloquial way to refer to people. As sufyan_alt states, when used colloquially, 'individual' still means the same thing as 'person', but is often used to emphasize the individuality (uniqueness) of a person.

Both make sense, but sound like how you would write in a book rather than how you would talk in real life. Which would probably just be “Tom’s talkative” or “Tom talks a lot”

Both are grammatically fine. Individual is maybe a little more prosaic/formal, person a little more natural. In everyday speech, we'd say "Tom's very talkative" or "Tom's a talkative guy" (though when you start getting informal, you probably run into more regional differences).

Yes. However, there are some subtle differences in connotation. "Person" is a more general term, while "individual" can emphasize the unique qualities of a person. For example, you might say "Tom is a unique individual" to highlight his special qualities.

Yes, but there's some regional and situational nuance. Most of the time, you'll want to say person. In general, using individual like this is going to be more formal and in some situations dehumanizing, which might slightly offend people. In some situations individual can even be used to express exasperation with the target.

Tom talk too damn much . tell him shut up . 

To me individual emphasises their autonomy, their personality, their quirks, you don't say "oh there's an individual over there" to say there's someone, not I'm any register, but you may say someone is "an individual" to say they do their thing and maybe aren't fully conventional. I've heard "oh he's a bit of an individual" to say someone's weird in a euphemistic way. "Individualism" is the idea that we're all unique and all have our own lives aspirations and can all achieve our own things for ourselves. Basically "individual" emphasises the one-ness of a person, the things that make them special the things that make them interesting, it hones in one person, without being so general as to include others. According to other comments there's no difference, so it may be dialectal but I know for a fact there is a difference in my dialect (Mancunian english)

It's mostly just a filler word when you use it in this context since we know Tom is probably a human male, which could be described as a person or individual. When used without a subject, such as a police call "Several individuals were seen leaving the scene of the crime." we do not know the person and it's a bit technical.

This might be off topic but legal persons don't have to be individuals.

Person = general term, physical body count Individual = focus on the cognitive/mind/personality They're pretty interchangeable, just a subtle difference. "Person" is more casual whereas "individual" you're maybe referring to deeper qualities than just someone standing nearby