UNIT 97. Adjectives: a nice new house, you look tired

A

Sometimes we use two or more adjectives together:
– My brother lives in a nice new house.
– There was a beautiful large round wooden table in the kitchen.

Adjectives like new/large/wooden are fact adjectives. They give us factual information about age, size, color, etc.

Adjectives like nice/beautiful are opinion adjectives. They tell us what somebody thinks of something or somebody.

Opinion adjectives usually go before fact adjectives.

B

Sometimes we use two or more fact adjectives together. Usually (but not always) we put fact adjectives in this order:

-—————————–
1.
how
big

2.
how
old?

3.
what
color?

4.
where
from?

5.
what is it
made of?

6.
NOUN
-—————————–

a tall young man (1 -> 2)
big blue eyes (1 -> 3)
a small black plastic bag (1 -> 3 -> 5)

a large wooden table (1 -> 5)
an old Russian song (2 -> 4)
an old white cotton shirt(2 -> 3 -> 5)

Adjectives of size and length (big/small/tall/short/long, etc.) usually go before adjectives of shape and width (round/fat/thin/slim/wide, etc.):

a large round table
a tall thing girl
a long narrow street

When there are two or more color adjectives, we use and:

a black and white dress
a red, white, and green flag

This does not usually happen with other adjectives before a noun:

a long black dress (not a long and black dress)

C

We use adjectives after be/get/become/seem:
– Be careful!
– I’m tired and I’m getting hungry.
– As the movie went on, it became more and more boring.
– Your friend seems very nice.

We also use adjectives to say how somebody/something looks, feels, sounds. tastes, or smells:
– You look tired. / I feel tired. / She sounds. tired.
– The dinner smells good.
– This milk tastes a little strange.

But to say how somebody does something you must use an adverb:
– Drive carefully! (not Drive careful)
– Susan plays the piano very well. (not plays … very good)

D

We say “the first two days / the next few weeks / the last 10 minutes,” etc.:
– I didn’t enjoy the first two days of the course. (not the two first days)
– They’ll be away for the next few weeks. (not the few next week)