Unit 99 · Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives: a nice new house, you look tired

Study

Sometimes we use two or more adjectives together:

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My brother lives in a nice new house.

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In the kitchen there was a beautiful large round wooden table.

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

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

Opinion adjectives usually go before fact adjectives.

	opinion	fact
a	nice	long	summer holiday
an	interesting	young	man
a	delicious	hot	vegetable soup
	beautiful	large round wooden	table

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

1 how big?	2 how old?	3 what colour?	4 where from?	5 what is it made of?	NOUN
a tall young man	(1 → 2)
a large wooden table	(1 → 5)
big blue eyes	(1 → 3)
an old Russian song	(2 → 4)
a small black plastic bag	(1 → 3 → 5)
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.):

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a large round table

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a tall thin girl

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a long narrow street

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

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a black and white dress

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a red, white and green flag

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

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

We use adjectives after be/get/become/seem:

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Be careful!

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I'm tired and I'm getting hungry.

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As the film went on, it became more and more boring.

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Your friend seems very nice.

We also use adjectives to say how somebody/something looks, feels, sounds, tastes or smells:

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You look tired.

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I feel tired.

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She sounds tired.

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The dinner smells good.

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This tea tastes a bit strange.

But to say how somebody does something you must use an adverb (see Units 100–101):

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Drive carefully! (not Drive careful)

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Suzanne plays the piano very well. (not plays … very good)

We say 'the first two days', 'the next few weeks', 'the last ten minutes' etc. :

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I didn't enjoy the first two days of the course. (not the two first days)

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They'll be away for the next few weeks. (not the few next weeks)

Adverbs ➜ Units 100–101

Comparative (cheaper etc.) ➜ Units 105–107

Superlative (cheapest etc.) ➜ Unit 108

Exercises (4)

0/4 exercises checked

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99.1

Put the adjectives in brackets in the correct position.

1
a beautiful tableexample
2
an unusual ring
3
an house
4
gloves
5
an film
6
flowers
7
a long face
8
big clouds
9
a day
10
an ugly dress
11
a wide avenue
12
important ideas
13
a sweater
14
a box
15
long hair
16
an painting
17
a large umbrella
18
a big cat

99.2

Complete each sentence with a verb (in the correct form) and an adjective from the boxes.

feellookseemsmellsoundtasteawfulnervousinterestingniceupsetwet

1
Helen this morning. Do you know what was wrong?example
2
I can't eat this. I've just tried it and it .
3
It's normal to before an exam or an interview.
4
What beautiful flowers! They too.
5
You . Have you been out in the rain?
6
James told me about his new job. It – much better than his old job.

99.3

Put in the correct word.

1
This tea tastes a bit . (strange / strangely)example
2
I usually feel when the sun is shining. (happy / happily)
3
The children were playing in the garden. (happy / happily)
4
You look ! Are you all right? (terrible / terribly)
5
There's no point in doing a job if you don't do it . (proper / properly)
6
The soup tastes . Can you give me the recipe? (good / well)
7
Please hurry up! You're always so . (slow / slowly)
8
A customer in the restaurant was behaving . (bad / badly)
9
The customer became when the manager asked him to leave. (violent / violently)

99.4

Write the following in another way using the first … / the next … / the last … .

1
the first day and the second day of the course example
2
next week and the week after example
3
yesterday and the day before yesterday
4
the first week and the second week of May
5
tomorrow and a few days after that
6
questions 1, 2 and 3 in the exam
7
next year and the year after
8
the last day of our holiday and the two days before that