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Adjective order



What is an adjective?
–A word that describes a noun.

–Example:
–A fast bike
–A blue pen
–A nice person
–A smart student
–An old house

Put the following adjectives in a sentence: fast – blue – american – nice – big – old  


Put the following adjectives in a sentence: fast – blue – american – nice – big – old  
My brother has a … bike.

My brother has a nice big old 

blue american fast bike.


If we don’t want to emphasise any one of the adjectives, the most usual sequence of adjectives is:

order
relating to
examples
1
opinion
unusual, lovely, beautiful
2
size
big, small, tall
3
physical quality
thin, rough, untidy
4
shape
round, square, rectangular
5
age
young, old, youthful
6
colour
blue, red, pink
7
origin
Dutch, Japanese, Turkish
8
material
metal, wood, plastic
9
type
general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped
10
purpose
cleaning, hammering, cooking
Examples:
It was made of a 1strange, 6green, 8metallic material.
It’s a 2long, 4narrow, 8plastic brush.
Panettone is a 4round, 7Italian, 9bread-like Christmas cake.
Here are some invented examples of longer adjective phrases. A noun phrase which included all these types would be extremely rare.
She was a 1beautiful, 2tall, 3thin, 5young, 6black-haired, 7Scottish woman.
What an 1amazing, 2little, 5old, 7Chinese cup and saucer
Textbook activity:

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