The Order Of Adjectives
The order of more then 2 adjectives in a sentence.
- In most cases the adjective is placed before the noun.
- There is an order that is used when using more then 2 adjectives together. The order in some cases can be changed, but it is a good guidelines for ESL and EFL students that are learning English.
- It is not common to used more then 3 adjectives together, but it is possible and can be grammatically correct.
- When there are 2 or more adjectives that are from the same group* "and" is placed between the 2 adjectives.
- When there are 3 or more adjectives from the same adjective group, then a comma is placed between the are from the same group.*. A comma is not placed between an adjective and a noun.
- When an article is used such as "a", "an" or "the" the articles are placed before the adverb. The article must agree with the noun grammatically.
- The adjectives must agree with the noun grammatically.
*The 9 different adjective groups are listed below.
The order of the adjectives is as followed:
- Determiner - a, an, her, five, many, much several etc.
- Opinion - pretty, ugly, smart, cheap, etc.
- Size - big, fat, thin, tall, large, small etc.
- Shape - circle, square, tall, short etc.
- Age - old, young 10 years, a year, a week, new etc.
- Color - yellow, green, pink etc.
- Origin - American, English, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, European, Chinese etc.
- Material - cotton, wood, plastic, cloth, glass, gold etc.
- Purpose/Qualifier -
- hat box, sleeping bag, computer table,safe island, football field. (The words in green are the purpose/qualifier words.)
Examples:
- The big black dog ate my food.
- I like that pretty green sofa.
- I want to go to a big, quit, safe.
- We sleep in a small, pink and green room.
Quote:
"Economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing."
- Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics (New York: William Morrow, 2005), ISBN 0-06-073132-X, p. 20
