Adjective order

Level: intermediate

Two adjectives

We often have two adjectives in front of a noun:

a handsome young man
a big black car
that horrible big dog

Some adjectives give a general opinion. We can use these adjectives to describe almost any noun:

good
bad
lovely
strange
nice
beautiful
brilliant
excellent
awful
important
wonderful
nasty

He's a good/wonderful/brilliant/bad/dreadful teacher.

That's a good/wonderful/brilliant/bad/dreadful book.

Some adjectives give a specific opinion. We only use these adjectives to describe particular kinds of noun, for example:

Food Furniture, buildings People, animals
delicious
tasty
comfortable
uncomfortable
clever
intelligent
friendly

We usually put a general opinion in front of a specific opinion:

nice tasty soup
a nasty uncomfortable armchair

a lovely intelligent animal

We usually put an opinion adjective in front of a descriptive adjective:

a nice red dress
a silly old man
those horrible yellow curtains

Order of adjectives 1

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Order of adjectives 2

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Adjectives after link verbs

We use some adjectives only after a link verb:

afraid
alive
alone
asleep
content
glad
ill
ready
sorry
sure
unable
well

Some of the commonest -ed adjectives are normally used only after a link verb:

annoyed
bored
finished
pleased
thrilled

We say:

Our teacher was ill.
My uncle was very glad when he heard the news.
The policeman seemed to be very annoyed.

but we do not say:

We had an ill teacher.
When he heard the news he was
a very glad uncle.
He seemed to be a very annoyed policeman.

Order of adjectives 3

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Level: advanced

Three or more adjectives

Sometimes we have three adjectives in front of a noun, but this is unusual:

a nice handsome young man     
a big black American car     
that horrible big fierce dog

It is very unusual to have more than three adjectives.

Adjectives usually come in this order:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
General opinion Specific opinion Size Shape Age Colour Nationality Material
Order of adjectives 4­

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Adjectives in front of nouns

A few adjectives are used only in front of a noun:

north
south
east
west

northern
southern
eastern
western
countless
occasional
lone
mere
indoor
outdoor


 

We say:

He lives in the eastern district.
There were countless problems with the new machinery.

but we do not say:

The district he lives in is eastern.
The problems with the new machinery were countless.

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Profile picture for user David Araque

Submitted by David Araque on Thu, 04/01/2018 - 23:25

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Good afternoon dear Peter and Kirk. I have a problem with the order of the following sentence and I will really appreciate your help. The__________(two, afternoon, interesting, teacher's, classes) are large. I don't know where to put the genitive in those structures. The two interesting afternoon teacher's classes are large. Or The two teacher's interesting afternoon classes are large. The teacher's interesting two afternoon classes are large.

Hello David Araque,

We generally do not provide answers to questions that are from elsewhere (other sites, books or tests) as we cannot become an answering service for people's homework! However, I can give you a clue which should help you. The clue is that the word teacher's here refers to only one teacher and so the word two must refer to classes, which is the only plural noun. That should help you as it is clear what the other adjectives can describe.

If you try to answer it yourself we will tell you if you have it right or not.

 

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Thank you so much dear Peter for your assistance. So the correct sentence would be: The teacher's two interesting afternoon classes are large.

Hello David,

Yes, that sounds right to me and as far as I can see is the only correct answer.

All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team