Lesson 1: adjectives

Adjectives

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. (By "noun" we include pronouns and noun phrases.)

An adjective "qualifies" or "modifies" a noun (a big dog).

Adjectives can be used before a noun (I like Chinese food) or after certain verbs (It is hard).

We can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young French lady).

Adjective Order
There are 2 basic positions for adjectives:
1-before the noun
2-after certain verbs (be, become, get, seem, look, feel, sound, smell, taste)


adj. noun verb adj.

I like big Cars. //My car is big.


Adjective before Noun

We sometimes use more than one adjective before the noun:

I like big black dogs.
She was wearing a beautiful long red dress.

What is the correct order for two or more adjectives?

1. The general order is: opinion, fact:
a nice French car (not a French nice car)

("Opinion" is what you think about something. "Fact" is what is definitely true about something.)

2. The normal order for fact adjectives is size, age, shape, colour, material, origin:
a big, old, square, black, wooden Chinese table

3. Determiners usually come first, even though they are fact adjectives:
articles (a, the)
Possessives (my, you’re...)
Demonstratives (this, that...)
Quantifiers (some, any, few, many...)
numbers (one, two, three)

Here is an example with opinion and fact adjectives:
adjectives noun
deter-miner /opinion /fact

age/ shape/colour

two nice old round red candles

When we want to use two colour adjectives, we join them with "and":
Many newspapers are black and white.
She was wearing a long, blue and yellow dress.

Adjectives after verbs:

Look at the examples below:
Subject verb adjective

EX:

Ram is English.
Because she had to wait, she became impatient.
Is it getting dark?
The examination did not seem difficult.
Your friend looks nice.
This towel feels damp.
That new film doesn't sound very interesting.
Dinner smells good tonight.
This milk tastes sour.

Now check your understanding
Add as many adjective as you can to complete the description:

I lost a __________________________ bag
I met____________________________ people at the conference
The clown was wearing a ___________________________hat
This course is ____________________
I wore a _____________________________dress