What is an adjective?

An adjective is a word that descirbes a noun. It gives us more information about someone or something like the colour, size, material, origin, etc.

For example:

The girl is pretty.

 It is a German dish.


Where do you need to place adjectives?

A) Usually, adjectives are placed before the noun that they describe:

A big house.

A old lady.

 

B) It also can be placed after the verb to be:

The house is big.

The lady is old.

 

C) Adjectives can as well be placed after the following verbs:

  • appear
  • become
  • feel
  • get
  • go
  • keep
  • turn
  • looks
  • smells
  • sounds
  • tastes

For example:

Sushi looks good but tastes bad.

At the beginning, the movie was boring but then it got interesting.


Adjectives with –ed and -ing

Adjectives with –ing describe a thing and adjectives with –ed describe how someone feels.

For example:

Math lesson is boring.                                                 I am bored.

 The concert was really exciting.                               She was really excited by the concert.


Which adjective goes first, when there are more in one sentence?

The adjectives are normally in a certain order when more than one adjective comes before a noun.

  1. Opinion: pretty, interesting, funny
  2. Size: huge, giant, larger, small
  3. Age: young, old, new
  4. shape: skinny, round, flat
  5. colour: black, yellow, green
  6. origin: French, American, Greek
  7. material: plastic, wood, silk
  8. purpose (= to indicate what something is used for): sleeping (bag), weeding (gift)

Adjectives without nouns

The construction „the + adjective“ is used to talk about some well-known groups of people.

 

Examples are:

the blind, the deaf, the unemployed, the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the dead, the Irish, the supernatural…