Adjective

Adjective

What is an adjective? Simply put, an adjective is a word we use to describe a person or thing.

Adjectives can describe nouns and pronouns.

Nouns

For nouns, let's look at some examples.

A diligent student gets good grades.

A happy mother is a good mother.

I have awesome teachers.

Here are the adjectives:

diligent happy good awesome

Yes, adjectives can describe either singular or plural nouns.

Pronouns

For pronouns, here are two sentences.

He is happy.

They are colorful.

He and They are pronouns.

happy and colorful are adjectives and they describe the pronouns.

Structure

Here is one structure for using adjectives.

We have subject plus linking verb plus adjective.

And here are some common linking verbs:

• be
• become
• seem
• appear
• look
• feel
• taste
• smell
• sound

The linking verbs can be in any verb tense such as present, past, perfect or future.

The other structure in sentences is to have adjective plus noun.

For example:

• smart student
• happy mother
• awesome teacher

Order

You already know that adjectives describe nouns and pronouns.

For example.

The teacher is happy.

Teacher is the noun. Happy is the adjective that describes teacher.

They are excited.

They is the pronoun and excited is the adjective that describes they.

You could have many adjectives to describe one noun.

But what order should the adjectives go in?

How do you know what order to use?

The good news is there is an order to adjectives.

First comes the number, then opinion, size, shape, condition, age, color, pattern, origin, material, and then purpose.

But usually we only use three to four different types of adjectives for one noun.

For example, for a woman, we can describe her as pretty, slim, blond, Canadian.

Participle

You have learned that the present participle is formed by adding -ing.

For example, the present participle of look is looking.

And the present participle of dance is dancing.

The past participle is generally formed by adding -ed.

Look becomes looked. And dance becomes danced.

Look at these participle adjectives.

Exciting, excited, amusing, amused, boring, bored, soothing, soothed.

What do they have in common? Yes! They are feelings.

When we use the past participle as an adjective, we are talking about the feeling inside you.

It describes person.

When we use the present participle as an adjective, we are talking about the cause of this feeling.

It describes thing.

Let's say, money.

Money is exciting. When I see money, I am excited.

Let's look at another example.

The TV show is amusing, I am amused.

One more example,

The weather is boring, I feel bored.

Comparatives

We use the comparative when we compare two things or two people.

For adjectives with one syllable and some adjectives with two syllables, add er to the adjective.

Big becomes bigger.

Spicy becomes spicier.

Some two syllable words are special. You would add more or less to the adjective.

careful becomes more careful or less careful.

If there are three or more syllables, you would also add more or less to the adjective.

For example,

interesting. It becomes more interesting or less interesting.

Superlative

Well, What happens when we want to compare more than two things?

This is the superlative.

For superlatives, if adjectives are one or two syllables, you just add est to the end.

bright becomes brightest

broad becomes broadest

For some two syllable adjectives or three or more syllable adjectives, you would use most plus the adjective or least plus the adjective.

In addition, It is very important to use the definite article the before the superlative.

beautiful becomes most beautiful

And there's one more thing. There are such things as irregular adjectives.

Good and bad.

Instead of adding er ,est, more, or less,

good becomes better and best. Bad becomes worse and worst.

One more example is far.

The comparative becomes farther and the superlative becomes farthest.