Adjectives I
Gabriel Roberts
ELTC
Adjectives are often called describing words although it
is more correct to call them defining words as they define
the noun that they come before. If we want to talk about
a car for example then we can give greater quality to the
car by putting an adjective before the noun car.
The blue car
The large car
More than one adjective can be used to define a noun. In
this case there is a particular order let's take the
example:
lovely
big
old
black
quality
size
age colour
Latin
leather
origin
material
This is a typical example of adjective order but you
should only use so many adjectives when you want to
write a very descriptive sentence.
It is a lot easier to remember this simple rule about
adjective order:
a
opinion
nice
fact
young
girl
Of course, the girl may not be nice in everybody's
opinion but most people would agree on her young age.
Task 1
Put these adjectives in the right order
1. huge patterned
2. old ridiculous
3. yellow unstoppable
4. shiny fantastic
5. unstable young
6. small orange silk well-made new
sofa
joke
lorry
shoes
minds
handbag
Adjectives as a Compliment
Adjectives can also be used in sentences without a
noun. In this case the adjective is called the complement
in the 'Subject Verb Complement' construction.
subject
verb
complement
I
am
cold
She
is
tall
Comparative Adjectives
When we want to compare between two things we can
use a comparative adjective to define the noun.
To do this we need to count the syllables in a word (a
syllable is a sound part of a word) if there are one or two
syllables in a word, we simply add -er to the end of the
word.
If there are three or more syllables to a word, we put the
word more before the adjective and very often the word
than after the adjective
big
bigger
long
longer
sad
sadder
horrible
more horrible
expensive
more expensive
interesting
more interesting
Superlative Adjectives
When we want to say that a noun is at the top of its
category we can use the superlative the form of the
adjective. If the adjective it is a two syllables or less
than we simply add -est to the end of the adjective. If
it is three syllables or more than we replace more with
the most.
big
biggest
long
longest
sad
saddest
horrible
most horrible
expensive
most expensive
interesting
most interesting
There are some exceptions
good
better
best
bad
worse
worst
fun
more fun
the most fun
Task 2
Conjugate these adjectives into their comparative and
superlative forms
1. happy
2. promising
3. inevitable
4. close
5. tall
6. awful
7. deep
8. profession