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Hi guys! Dan for BBC Learning English here with this week's Learner Question. Find out
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what it is after this.
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OK! This week's learner question comes from Belen from Spain. Who asks, "May I ask which
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the correct order in adjectives is?" Of course you can Belen. Are you ready? Are you ready?
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Are you ready? Here we go.
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When we use two or more adjectives together to describe a noun, the order that we put
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them in is quite important. For example, we don't usually say an old Indian beautiful
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carpet. That sounds weird. It sounds much better say a beautiful old Indian carpet.
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As a general rule, adjectives are placed in the following order: opinion, size, quality,
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age, shape, colour, participle forms, origin, material type and purpose. Did you get that?
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It's a beautiful old Indian carpet.
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If you want to use two adjectives from the same group together, we combine them with
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'and'. For example, it's a beautiful old red and green Indian carpet. We can also combine
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adjectives with but, and this is usually when they have a contradictory meaning. For example,
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it's an old but expensive Indian carpet.
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Finally, if we use 2 adjectives that have a similar meaning, we usually put the shorter
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one first. For example, it's a soft, comfortable chair.
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I hope that answers your question Belen. Thank you very much for writing to us. If anybody
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else out there has a question for Learners' Questions, then please email us on: learning.english@bbc.co.uk.
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Please remember to put Learners' Questions in the subject box and include your name and
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the country that you're writing from. We can't possibly answer all your questions, guys,
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because we just get too many, but we promise, we do read all of them. And, of course, you
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can always go to our website: bbclearningenglish.com for more information on grammar, vocabulary
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and everything else. Dan from Learners' Questions. I'll see you next time. Say bye-bye. Say bye-bye.