• The Order of Adjectives
  • anonym
  • 30.06.2020
  • Englisch
  • C1, C2
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The Order of Ad­jec­ti­ves

The order of ad­jec­ti­ves in a se­ries is pro­bab­ly not the first topic that comes to mind when we think about working on per­fec­ting our Eng­lish gram­mar. Ne­verthe­less, it is an im­portant part of achie­ving the ul­ti­ma­te goal that is ma­king our Eng­lish sound as na­tu­ral as pos­si­ble. For some, it may al­re­a­dy be se­cond na­tu­re to put ad­jec­ti­ves in the cor­rect order; for others, mul­ti­ple ad­jec­ti­ves in a se­ries might still look stran­ge be­cau­se the order does not fol­low the pat­tern used in Eng­lish. As al­ways, there are a lot of ex­cep­ti­ons to the rule. But first, let's take a look at the ge­ne­ral order!

1. De­ter­mi­ners

> articles/ quan­ti­fiers/ other li­mi­ters: a(n), the, four, that,      some, 15

2. Ob­ser­va­ti­on

> ad­jec­ti­ves sub­ject to sub­jec­ti­ve me­a­su­re: hor­ri­ble,          gor­geous, in­credi­ble

3. Size

> ad­jec­ti­ves sub­ject to ob­jec­ti­ve me­a­su­re: large, small,      big

4. Shape

> ad­jec­ti­ves sub­ject to ob­jec­ti­ve me­a­su­re: round, oval,          squa­re

5. Age

> young, old, an­cient

6. Color

> red, blue, green

7. Ori­gin

> Chi­ne­se, Rus­si­an, Ger­man

8. Ma­te­ri­al

> gold, woo­den, glass

Punc­tu­a­ti­on!

Coor­di­na­ted ad­jec­ti­ves are ad­jec­ti­ves be­lon­ging to the same class. Se­pa­ra­te them with a comma.

E.g. "a gor­geous, in­credi­ble woman"

1
De­ci­de which ca­te­go­ry each of the fol­lo­wing ad­jec­ti­ves be­longs to. Write down the cor­rect ca­te­go­ry num­ber (1-8) in the bra­ckets be­hind the ad­jec­ti­ves.

  • You can make use of the ad­jec­ti­ves below:



  • red (    )
  • an­tique (    )
  • litt­le (    )
  • plastic (    )
  • straight (    )
  • Ame­ri­can (    )
  • fa­sci­na­ting (    )
  • young (    )



  • my (    )
  • Irish (    )
  • de­li­cious (    )
  • gi­gan­tic (    )
  • 17 (    )
  • purple (    )
  • cot­ton (    )
  • rec­tan­gu­lar (    )
2
We usu­al­ly don't use more than three ad­jec­ti­ves in a row. Think of de­scrip­ti­ve sen­ten­ces using at least two ad­jec­ti­ves at a time. You get bonus points if your sen­ten­ces tell a story.
  • Feel free to use the ad­jec­ti­ves from the pre­vious exer­ci­se and add your own. Here are some more sug­ges­ti­ons:
  • beau­ti­ful
  • mi­ra­cu­lous
  • Ba­li­ne­se
  • woo­den
  • beige
  • those
  • tri­vi­al
  • grace­ful
  • thin
  • ri­di­cu­lous
  • round
  • sil­ver
  • croo­ked
  • mi­nis­cu­le
  • grue­so­me
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