Here is a post in celebration of another stellar day of teaching English as a foreign language!
I had a jolly good question asked me today, to do with Adjectives:
''Teacher Bee-Why do we sometimes see lots of adjectives in one sentence?''
- Why can we use a list of adjectives together?
- Are they accompanied by a comma?
- Do we use a comma with them?
Let's begin with the listing:
Adjectives can be classified into roughly nine categories.
In English, we generally use them in this order:
- quantity-->opinion-->
size-->age-->shape-->color--> origin-->material-->purpose.
We know that mostly, we place adjectives before a noun. It is rather uncommon to place more than three adjectives together- however entirely possible and grammatically correct.
There are about nine different ''Adjective groups'' and we can list them as follows:
- Determiners- a, an, her, five, many, much several...
- Opinion - pretty, ugly, smart, cheap...
- Size - long, fat, thin, tall, large, small ...
- Shape - circle, square, tall, short etc.
- Age - old, young 10 years, a year, a week, new ...
- Color - blue, purple, pink, grey...
- Origin - English, Asian, German,South African,Chinese...
- Material - cloth, glass, gold, silver ...
- Purpose - sleeping bag, coffee table,safe island, basketball court...
When we use two or more adjectives that are from the same group, "and" is placed between the last two adjectives.
Example:
Her hair is long, straight and grey.
When there are 3 or more adjectives from the same adjective group- remember to place a comma between each of the adjectives.
Example:
A pretty,intelligent, lively girl. (A comma is not placed between an adjective and the noun.)
Example of using multiple adjectives:
QUANTITY( Ten) OPINION( well educated) SIZE(short) AGE(young) SHAPE(round) COLOR ORIGIN(
Let's touch on a most important type of adjective- the much neglected compound adjective:
What are compound adjectives?
Do you read the newspaper? Do you ever watch cooking shows? I am not sure if you have noticed, however- compound adjectives are often used in newspaper articles, on cooking shows and in ''real English'' -
A few examples:
ADJECTIVE + PRESENT / PAST PARTICIPLE
- ill-equipped= without the ability, qualities, or equipment to do something
- Quick-witted = intelligent
- middle-aged = being roughly between 45 and 65 years old
- Absent-minded = forgetful
- Thick-skinned = not easily offended
- open-ended=An open-ended activity or situation does not have a planned ending, so it may develop in several ways
ADJECTIVE + ADVERB + PRESENT PARTICIPLE
- heart-rending= causing great sympathy or sadness
- Long-lasting = Existing for a long time
- Never-ending = Not ending
- Mouth-watering = Appealing to the sense of taste
- Far-reaching = Having a wide range, influence/effect
- Record-breaking = Surpassing any established record
A compound adjective is formed when we put two or more adjectives together to modify a noun. We make sure that these are hyphenated to avoid confusion or ambiguity. (an example of) (the fact of something having more than one possible meaning and therefore possibly causing confusion.)
For example:
- Adriana is a quick-witted person.
- She lives in an English-speaking country.
- She e-mailed a 2-page document.
- Yen is a hard-working student.
- Iris is a sound-minded individual.
- Elisabeth is a strong-minded lady.
- Birgit has deeply-rooted beliefs about life.
- The brightly-lit streets make it easy to drive at night.
- Diana sent a well-written homework assignment.
New combinations are always possible, so if you think something may work,why not get creative? Try creating your own words- get adventurous!
Last but not least----> try to ''NOTICE'' These when you see them! Try to make a note of compound adjectives that you come across(find) in your reading and observe the way they are used with nouns.
Make your own list and start using them in conversations :)
