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  • English Grammar

  • Lesson 31

  • Topic: Order of Adjectives

  • I'm standing in front of my new bookcase.

  • As you can see, it's white,

  • and personally, I think it's lovely.

  • So could I also say that I'm standing in front of

  • my new white lovely bookcase?

  • You understand what I mean,

  • but it sounds rather strange, doesn't it?

  • Why?

  • I said, "A new white lovely bookcase."

  • How many adjectives did I use?

  • 1, 2, 3.

  • We often use one or two adjectives before a noun,

  • but three or more? It's not as common.

  • So what's the alternative to one long phrase

  • with three or more adjectives?

  • We can use two shorter phrases

  • or create a separate sentence.

  • For example,

  • "This is my new white bookcase. Isn't it lovely?"

  • Now, although it's not common

  • to use several adjectives in a phrase,

  • it does happen.

  • And when we have two or more adjectives,

  • there's a certain order that we follow.

  • And when I first showed you my bookcase,

  • I broke that order.

  • What would sound more natural?

  • A lovely new white bookcase.

  • I'm not be able to explain the logic

  • behind this sequence at all times,

  • but I can help the sequence become

  • become more familiar to you

  • so that your speech sounds more natural.

  • When we break that usual order of adjectives,

  • it catches the ear of our listener.

  • So it's worth practicing the order of adjectives

  • to make your speech sound more natural.

  • Now one of the things that I think

  • makes this bookcase so lovely

  • is having all these knick-knacks.

  • Do you know what knick-knacks are?

  • Knick-knacks are interesting objects.

  • They're beautiful things that we use for decoration.

  • So "interesting"..."beautiful"

  • It's kind of like "lovely."

  • All of these adjectives - interesting, beautiful, lovely -

  • express opinion.

  • And one of the first patterns you should learn

  • is that adjectives that express opinion

  • generally come first.

  • That's why I can say,

  • "A lovely new bookcase."

  • "A lovey white bookcase."

  • What if we have more than one adjective

  • that describes an opinion?

  • Like "interesting and beautiful."

  • I kind of gave you a hint!

  • Well, it doesn't matter then

  • which one comes first.

  • I'm going to show you

  • my beautiful, interesting knick-knacks.

  • I'm going to show you

  • my interesting, beautiful knick-knacks.

  • "Beautiful, interesting" / "Interesting, beautiful"...

  • It doesn't matter.

  • If you're writing,

  • you will need to use a comma

  • to separate those two adjectives.

  • One way to know

  • whether you need a comma or not

  • between two adjectives

  • is by putting the word "and" between them.

  • Could I say,

  • "Beautiful and interesting knick-knacks?"

  • Yes.

  • So a comma is needed.

  • In contrast, when I tell you

  • about my lovely new white bookcase,

  • I don't need to say

  • "Lovely and new and white bookcase."

  • So in that phrase

  • no comma is needed anywhere.

  • Now let's talk about adjectives that express something besides opinion.

  • We'll talk about a vase, my vase.

  • I'd like to tell you that this vase is made of glass,

  • it's round, and it's small.

  • If I want to use one phrase with these three adjectives,

  • I'll need to know the order the adjectives should go in.

  • We need to learn a pattern.

  • We need to know that size comes before shape,

  • and shape comes before material.

  • Then we can talk about my small round glass vase.

  • Let's study

  • the standard order of adjectives in English.

  • Before a noun, this is the order most English speakers follow.

  • opinion > size > age > shape> color >

  • origin (meaning where something came from

  • or where it was made, so that could be a nationality)

  • Then we have material and noun modifier.

  • A noun modifier is a noun that modifies or describes another noun.

  • So it behaves like an adjective.

  • So you see that nouns like to stick together.

  • and noun modifier is right before the main noun, your head noun.

  • So we can talk about a nice desk lamp...

  • an expensive floor lamp...

  • "Desk"..."floor"... those are examples of noun modifiers.

  • As I said,this is a standard order of adjectives.

  • Most speakers follow this order,

  • but there will be exceptions.

  • One person might talk about a beautiful large square rug.

  • A second person might look at the same rug and say it's a big ugly rug.

  • And that second person chose to break the order,

  • emphasizing size by putting it before opinion.

  • Let's try this.

  • I'll show you a knick-knack,

  • and then I'll describe it a few different ways.

  • You need to create one phrase with the correct order of adjectives.

  • There will be one main noun.

  • We call that the head noun.

  • So you need the correct order of adjectives before the head noun.

  • For example, if we're talking about a bookcase

  • and I tell you it's white, it's lovely, and it's new,

  • you'll need to create the phrase

  • "a lovely new white bookcase."

  • And why is that order correct?

  • Because "lovely" is an opinion.

  • Opinion generally comes first.

  • And then we have "a lovely new white...."

  • Age comes before color.

  • "A lovely new white bookcase."

  • Let's start.

  • This is my little angel.

  • I've had her since I was a child.

  • My name is written on it

  • along with my birthday, March 9.

  • So the angel is little. The angel is sweet.

  • She's my sweet little angel.

  • opinion > size > head noun

  • My sweet little angel.

  • My angel has wings.

  • They're small. They're white.

  • She has small white wings.

  • size > color > head noun

  • Small white wings.

  • This knick-knack has been in my family for a long time.

  • As you can see, there is a doll, and she's on a music box.

  • Okay? This is from Japan.

  • And I really love her hairstyle.

  • I've always loved that hairstyle.

  • It's very intricate.

  • And of course it's a hairstyle used in Japan.

  • This is an intricate Japanese hairstyle.

  • Intricate Japanese hairstyle.

  • "Intricate" could be considered opinion (observation).

  • I find it rather complex and detailed.

  • Maybe you find it ordinary.

  • But "Japanese" expresses origin.

  • Where did this come from? Where was it made?

  • An intricate Japanese hairstyle.

  • opinion (observation) > origin (nationality) > head noun

  • I especially love the color of this dress.

  • It's orange, and it's beautiful material.

  • It's silk.

  • It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous...silk...it's orange.

  • She's wearing a gorgeous orange silk dress.

  • A gorgeous orange silk dress.

  • opinion > color > material > and then our head noun

  • A gorgeous orange silk dress.

  • This is my lantern that I received in college.

  • All the students at my college received a lantern like this.

  • With a picture of an owl on it.

  • And all the students in my class received the color blue.

  • So there's an owl. It's blue.

  • It's also pretty old because I graduated

  • from college quite some time ago!

  • This is my old blue owl lantern.

  • Now if I'm going to throw "college" in there,

  • it's just becoming ridiculously long,

  • so I would choose to shorten the phrase

  • by putting "college" separately.

  • My old blue own lantern from college.

  • So when we start getting really long descriptions,

  • it's best to break it up.

  • In conversation I'd probably tell you

  • that this is my blue owl lantern.

  • Or my old owl lantern.

  • And I'll explain that it's blue, and I got it from college.

  • So very long descriptions with 4 or 5 adjectives

  • are just not very common because they're so cumbersome.

  • They're so hard to work with.

  • But if you did want the correct order,

  • it's "an old blue owl lantern...from college."

  • age > color > noun modifier > and then my head noun

  • This box belonged to my grandmother.

  • As you can see, it's round, it's made of metal,

  • and its rather small.

  • This is a small round metal box.

  • Small round metal box.

  • size > shape > material > head noun

  • Small round metal box.

  • This is a bookend.

  • I have different bookends to hold up my books,

  • so they don't fall down.

  • This particular bookend is very heavy

  • because it's made of stone.

  • This is a heavy stone bookend.

  • A heavy stone bookend.

  • "Heavy" is size.

  • "Stone" is material.

  • Head noun.

  • Heavy stone bookend.

  • That's all for now.

  • I hope you found this to be an interesting, helpful lesson.

  • Thanks for watching.

  • Happy studies!

English Grammar

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