How to Use Adjectives Correctly

In linguistics, an adjective is a describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified.

Adjectives are one of the English parts of speech, although historically they were classed together with the nouns. Certain words that were traditionally considered to be adjectives, including the, this, my, etc., are today usually classed separately, as determiners. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective)

In other words…

An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun by providing descriptive or specific detail. Unlike adverbs, adjectives do not modify verbs, other adjectives, or adverbs. Adjectives usually precede the noun or pronoun they modify. Adjectives do not have to agree in number or gender with the nouns they describe. Adjectives answer the following questions: What kind?, How many?, or Which ones?

Types of Adjectives

Typical adjective endings

Denominal adjectives
Order of adjectives
Comparing adjectives
Compound adjectives
Adjectival phrases

Today we are looking at the Order of Adjectives. Generally, the adjective order in English is:

1. Quantity or number.
2. Quality or opinion.
3. Size.
4. Shape or Quality
5. Age.
6. Condition
7. Colour.
8. Proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material)
9. Material
10. Purpose or qualifier.

Before the adjectives you will usually have the Determiner.

Determiner: The determiner tells us if the noun is singular or plural, definite or indefinite

• a, an, the, my, your, four, those, some etc

And then we have the adjectives that refer to…

Quantity: Refers to a particular or indefinite amount of anything:

• a small quantity of milk; the ocean's vast quantity of fish.

Opinion: Explains what we think about something. This is usually our opinion, attitude or observations. These adjectives almost always come before all other adjectives.

• beautiful, boring, stupid, delicious, useful, lovely, comfortable

Size: Tells us how big or small something is.

• big, small, tall, huge, tiny

Shape / Weight / Length: Tells about the shape of something or how long or short it is. It can also refer to the weight of someone or something.

• round, square, circular, skinny, fat, heavy, straight, long, short,

Condition: Tells us the general condition or state of something

• broken, cold, hot, wet, hungry, rich, easy, difficult, dirty

Age: Tells us how old someone or something is.

• old, young, new, ancient, antique

Colour: The colour or approximate colour of something.

• green, white, blue, reddish, purple

Pattern: The pattern or design of something.

• striped, spotted, checked, flowery

Origin: Tells us where something is from.

• American, British, Italian, eastern, Australian, Chilean

Material: What is the thing made of or constructed of?

• gold, wooden, silk, paper, synthetic, cotton, woolen

Purpose/Qualifier/Use: What is it for? These adjectives often end in –ing.

• sleeping (bag), gardening (gloves), shopping (bag), wedding (dress)

If you look at the examples above, you can ask… what are the gloves used for? (gardening) What is the bag used for? (shopping)

And after these we adjectives we have the…

Noun: The person or thing that is being described

Examples of the order of adjectives before a noun

Something to have in mind is that it does not sound natural using three or more adjectives in the same sentence and it is very rare to hear four adjectives together before a noun.

A big fat cat.

An interesting old Persian rug.

A striped cotton shirt

Some comfortable pink sleeping bags

Four small round plastic tables

Those funny little old men

Exercise

Make some sentences and email it to me at [email protected] and will I will mark it for you.

Greetings from home to home