Study Center - Adjectives

Adjectives

Adjectives describe or give information about noun or pronouns.

For example:

The grey dog barked. The adjective grey describes the noun "dog".
The good news is that the form of an adjective does not change.
It does not matter if the noun being modified is male or female, singular or plural, subject or object.

Some adjectives give us factual information about the noun - age, size colour etc. Some adjectives show what somebody thinks about something or somebody - nice, horrid, beautiful etc.

If you are asked questions with which, whose, what kind, or how many, you need an adjective to be able to answer.

There are different types of adjectives in the English language:

Numeric: six, one hundred and one

Quantitative: more, all, some, half, more than enough

Qualitative: colour, size, smell etc.

Possessive: my, his, their, your

Interrogative: which, whose, what

Demonstrative: this, that, those, these

Note-The articles a, an, and the and the possessives my, our, your, and their are also adjectives.

Opinion

Adjectives can be used to give your opinion about something.
good, pretty, right, wrong, funny, light, happy, sad, full, soft, hard etc.

For example:
He was a silly boy.

Size

Adjectives can be used to describe age.

For example:

"He was an old man." or "She was an old woman."

Shape

Adjectives can be used to describe shape.

round, circular, triangular, rectangular, square, oval, etc.

For example:

"The blue bag." or "The blue bags".

Colour

Adjectives can be used to describe colour.
blue, red, green, brown, yellow, black, white, etc.

For example:

"The blue bag." or "The blue bags".

Origin

Adjectives can be used to describe origin.

For example:

"It was a Bangladeshi flag." or "They were Bangladeshi flags."

Material

Adjectives can be used to describe material.

"It was a cotton cushion." or "They were cotton cushions."

Diatance

Adjectives can be used to describe distance. l -- o -- n -- g / short
long, short, far, around, start, high, low, etc.

For example:

"She went for a long walk." or "She went for lots of long walks."

Temperature

Adjectives can be used to describe temperature.
cold, warm, hot, cool, etc.

For example:

"It day was hot." or "They days were hot."

Time

Adjectives can be used to describe time.
late, early, bed, nap, dinner, lunch, day, morning, night, etc.

For example:

"She had an early start."

Purpose

Adjectives can be used to describe purpose. (These adjectives often end with "-ing".)

For example:

"She gave them a sleeping bag." or "She gave them sleeping bags."

Note -

In each case the adjective stays the same,
whether it is describing a maculine, feminine, singular or plural noun.
When using more than one adjective to modify a noun,
the adjectives may be separated by a conjunction (and) or by commas (,).

For examples:

"Her hair was long and blonde." or "She had long, blonde hair."

More examples:

She was a pretty girl.

He was a serious boy.

It was a fast car.

They were quiet children.

Note-

Adjectives that go immediately before the noun are called attributive adjectives.

Adjectives can also be used after some verbs.
They do not describe the verb, adverbs do that.
Adjectives after a verb describe the subject of the verb (usually a noun or pronoun).
They are called predicative adjectives.

For examples:

"David looks tired." The subject (in this case David) is being described as tired not the verb to look.

Used to

Used to can be used as an adjective and we use it to talk about things
that have become familiar, and are no longer strange or new.

Used to usually comes after verbs such as be, get or become.

After a while you get used to the noise.

She will become used to the smell.

I was used to the web site.

You can also say that someone is used to doing something.

I'll never get used to getting up at six o'clock in the morning.

It took me a while until I was used to driving on the right-hand side of the road.

Adjective Order

Adjectives can be used to describe opinion, size, age, shape, colour, material, origin and purpose.
We can use adjectives together to give a detailed description of something.
Adjectives that express opinions usually come before all others.

For example: "The big, white bus."
When we group adjectives together there is a general rule for the position of each type adjective,
these are:-

Position:

Opinion - Nice, Ugly

Size - Small, Big

Age - Old, New

Shape - Square, Circular

Colour - Black, Blue

Material - Plastic, Cotton

Origin - Bangladeshi, Egyptian

Purpose - Racing, Running

This is just a guide as you wouldn't normally see so many adjectives in one description.

For example:

"She had a big, ugly, old, baggy, blue, cotton, British, knitting bag."
Is grammatically correct but a bit too long-winded.

You might swap opinion and fact adjectives depending on what you wish to emphasise:-

For example:

"He had a long, ugly nose." emphasising the length of her nose.

"Rocky was a silly, little man." emphasising that the man was silly.

Comparative Adjectives

When we compare two things or people we look at what makes them different from each other.

For example:

Hasan is taller than Rakib

A car is faster than a bicycle

Comparative adjectives are used to show what quality one thing has more or less than the other.
They normally come before any other adjectives.

For example:

The Dhaka city is bigger than the Chittagong city.

Forming the comparative

Form - Words of one syllable ending in 'e'.

Rule-Add -r to the end of the word.

For example: wide - wider

Form -Words of one syllable, with one vowel and one consonant at the end.

Rule - Double the consonant and add -er to the end of the word.

For example: big - bigger

Form - Words of one syllable, with more than one vowel or more than one consonant at the end.

Rule - Add - er to the end of the word.

For example: high - higher

Form - Words of two syllables, ending in 'y'.

Rule - Change 'y' to 'i', and add -er to the end of the word.

For example: happy - happier

Form - Words of two syllables or more, not ending in 'y'.

Rule - Place 'more' before the adjective.

For example: beautiful - more beautiful

The following adjectives are exceptions to this rule:

'good' becomes 'better'

'bad' becomes 'worse'

'far' becomes 'farther' or 'further'

Note -

When comparing two things like this we put than between the adjective and the thing being compared.

For example:

"Mount Everest is higher than Mount Snowdon."

"Arguably, Rome is more beautiful than Paris.

Possessive Adjectives

Possesive adjectives are used to show ownership or possession.

Subject pronoun Possessive adjective

I my

you your

he his

she her

it its

we our

they their

For example:

I own this house.= This is my house.

You own this car (I presume). = It is your car.

Superlative Adjectives

The superlative is used to say what thing or person has the most of a particular quality within a group or of its kind.
Superlative adjectives normally come before any other adjectives.

For example:
Snowdon is the highest mountain in the world.

Forming the superlative

Form - Words of one syllable ending in 'e'.

Rule -Add -st to the end of the word.

For example - wide - widest

Form - Words of one syllable, with one vowel and one consonant at the end.

Rule - Double the consonant and add -est to the end of the word.

For example - big - biggest

Form -Words of one syllable, with more than one vowel or more than one consonant at the end.

Rule - Add - est to the end of the word.

For example - high - highest

Form -Words of two syllables, ending in 'y'

Rule -Change 'y' to 'i', and add -est to the end of the word.

For example - happy - happiest

Form -Words of two syllables or more, not ending in 'y'.

Rule - Place 'the most' before the adjective.

For example - beautiful - the most beautiful

The following adjectives are exceptions:

'good' becomes 'the best'

'bad' becomes 'the worst'

'far' becomes 'the furthest'

For example:

"Hasan is the best student in the class ."

"Mridul is the worst student in the class."

"In our solar system the planet Pluto is the furthest planet from the Sun."

Note: superlatives are usually preceded by 'the'.

For example:

"The Jamuna river is the longest river in Bangladesh."

"Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world."

"Arguably, Rome is the most beautiful city in the world."

"Parliament building is the prettiest building in Bangladesh"