Definitions in English table. Order of adjectives in English: groups, sequence, nuances and examples

The order of adjectives in English It is advisable to comply, although not all authors and do not always follow it. At the very least, you need to know that such a procedure exists and adhere to it when writing essays in English. At the end of this article there is a small exercise that will help you understand and consolidate the order of adjectives in English. Practice is the best remedy for language learning.

We know that it is defined quite strictly. What about adjectives, of which there may be several? First of all, use more than two or three adjectives together not recommended but, if you really want to, try to arrange them in an order that is understandable to the English.

Your opinion, impression or assessment comes first

When you want to describe an object with several adjectives, first of all think about your attitude towards it: beautiful, useful, important, interesting, tasty, etc. These adjectives are usually placed first in English. If there are two of them, then the more objective one is put first.

a cute little girl
an intelligent old man
delicious French food
a lovely intelligent dog

Next, the order of adjectives in English follows the following scheme:

Some explanations on the diagram.

How big? - what size, length, shape, width?

Adjectives size And length(big/small/tall/short/long) usually come before adjectives forms And width(round/thick/thin/slim/wide)

a big square box
a short slim woman
a long avenue
a big fat bear

How old? - what age?

a nice old film
a huge antique book
a handsome young man
a beautiful newborn baby girl

What color? - what color?

Two adjectives of color are joined by a word and, three or more adjectives of color are separated by a comma, the last one is preceded by and:

a green and yellow fruit
a green, brown and red flag
a white, gray and green dress

Where from? — where are you from?

cute Russian children
a famous English tower
the blue, white and red French flag

What is it made of? - what is it made of?

a large red plastic bag
an ancient wooden horse
fantastic Thai vegetarian food

Exercises on the order of adjectives in English

Adjective order

Place the adjectives in brackets into in the right order(put the adjectives in brackets in the correct position)

Start Quiz - a part of speech that can be used to describe an object, expressed by a noun. Most often there is only one adjective before a noun. If there are two or more of them, then theythe arrangement follows a certain rule.

So, adjectives are arranged in the following order:

adjective that expresses opinion about the subject (opinion): bad - bad, nice - pleasant, great - magnificent.

adjective describing size (size): big - large, small - small.

adjective meaning age (age): new - new, old - old, young - young.

adjective describing shape of the object (shape): oval - oval, round - round.

adjective meaning color (color): red - red, green - green.

adjective that describes origin of the item (origin): Chinese - Chinese, English - English.

adjective meaning material, from which the item is made (material): wooden - wooden, glass - glass.

adjective describing purpose of the item (purpose): washing - for washing, cooking - for preparing food.

Let's look at examples:

a big old wooden house

big old wooden house

a beautiful long red silk dress

beautiful long red silk dress

If one of the adjectives is in the comparative or superlatives, then it is always placed before all other adjectives:

the newest American cleaning liquid

America's newest cleaning product

If it is difficult to determine the category to which the adjective belongs, then you need to remember that an adjective is placed closer to the noun, denoting a more constant attribute.

In the article we will talk about adjectives - words that denote a characteristic and answer the question “which one?” (yellow, interesting, tasty, etc.). Typically, English adjectives are placed before the subject, i.e.: yellow lemon, not "the lemon is yellow". Difficulties begin when there are too many adjectives.

In what order should they be placed? Let's figure it out.

1. Where to put the signs?

However, before we move on to the order of adjectives, let's look again at where they can actually be placed.

The most common pattern is adjective + noun:

The new shiny bicycle waited for me in the shop.

However, in literature, the noun + adjective scheme can be used to create an artistic effect:

The bicycle, new and shiny, waited for me in the shop.
The bicycle, new and shiny, was waiting for me in the store.

Finally, if the most main idea sentences are to convey the attribute of an object, then you can use the scheme noun + verb “to be” + adjective:

The bicycle in the shop was new and shiny.
The bicycle in the store was new and shiny.

2. What other signs are there?

In addition to the cases already indicated (words answering the question “which one?”), the following words can be used as signs before nouns:

Words denoting certainty
We are talking about articles (a/an - indefinite, the - definite), as well as words like “this”, “that” (this, that, these, those).
Words denoting belonging
That is, what answers the question “whose?” These are words like "my", "your", his, her (my, your, his, her), etc. And also words with “s”: John’s house, friend’s phone, etc.
Nouns (words that answer the question “who?”, “what?”) as signs.
In English there is interesting feature: if we say two objects (nouns) in a row, then the first of them plays the role of a sign!

For example:

train ticket

Train- train, ticket- ticket. It turns out to be a “train ticket” - that is, ticket on train.

flower pot

Flower- flower, pot- pot. All together - floral pot.

Such things are found everywhere: they allow you not to come up with a new word (like “floral” from “flower”), but to make the most of existing ones.

3. Adjective order

Now we come to the most important thing. In what order should we arrange all the words that we put in front of our noun?

1) Determination and belonging

Always go first

or the article a/the,
or words like “that” - “this” (this/that/these/those),
or belonging (my, your, John's).

For example:

The new shiny bicycle waited for me in the shop.
A shiny new bike was waiting for me in the store.

This wonderful summer weather filled me with joy.
This The wonderful summer weather filled me with joy.

John's old blue car stayed in front of his house.
Jonova an old blue car stood in front of the house.

Note that all three points are mutually exclusive:

The my new shiny bicycle
Shiny new bike

This is the wonderful summer weather
This wonderful summer weather

The John's old blue car
John's old blue car

2) Quantity or serial number

If you want to indicate the quantity or serial number of an item, then this must be done after a/this/my etc.:

My two best friends are Jack and Linda.
My two best friends are Jack and Linda.

I like this second idea more.
I like it better this is the second one idea.

Sarah's many relatives came to her wedding.
Sarina has numerous relatives came to her wedding.

These two stunning photos are the best I"ve ever made.
These two amazing The photos are the best I've ever taken.

Many brilliant ideas appear unexpectedly.
Many brilliant ideas appear suddenly.

4) Objective signs subject

Now we come to the most important thing - those characteristics of an object that indicate its color, size, etc. - that is, they relate to physical characteristics, which do not depend on our opinion.

The difficulty is that there can be a great many such characteristics, and here too there is an order:

4.1) size
4.2) shape
4.3) condition (what item is on at the moment: clean, dirty, wet, dry, soft, hard, etc.)
4.4) age
4.5) color
4.6) source (where the object comes from)
4.7) material
4.8) purpose (what the object is for)

I have a big round cooking pot for such dishes.
I have a large round cooking pot for such dishes.
(size-shape-purpose)

The garage had a rusty old green metal roof
The garage had a rusty old green metal roof.
(condition-age-color-material)

This fine big black Japanese refrigerator has worked well for 10 years.
This quality big black japanese The refrigerator worked well for ten years.
(rating-size-color-source)

5) Nouns as signs

Finally, if you decide to use a noun as one of the attributes (like train ticket), then these two objects cannot be “separated”! Nouns as attributes always stand close to the “main” noun:

I showed him my tattered white train ticket.
I showed him mine torn white ticket by train.
(state-color-noun as a feature)

She brought home an unusual square white ceramic flower pot.
She brought home unusual square white ceramic floral pot.
(assessment-shape-color-material-noun as a feature)

Of course, the entire list presented looks a little complicated :). But in reality, you don’t have to fill out every single item: we rarely add more than three or four attributes to one item at a time.

What else can help in mastering this scheme? Make up some examples and try to remember them! This way you can use them to navigate the points. Just try to make the examples logical for you, and not just a bunch of words: try, say, to describe some object from the house that you see every day.

Native speakers, as you understand, do not have any patterns in their heads - they simply intuitively understand how to arrange the features, and if they hear them in the wrong order, it will sound strange to them. Use language more often: listen, watch, read, and then sooner or later you will also be able to rely on your own intuition.

Reinforcement task

Translate the sentences into English, arranging the signs in the correct order:

1. He sold his old large wooden cottage.
2. I love these great white soft Indian cotton throws.
3. Have you seen the small brown leather wallet?
4. I'm looking for a clear rectangular glass ashtray.
5. Where is my black old cleaning brush?
6. Throw away those ugly green old leather athletic shoes!
7. Do you like my adorable new blue diamond earrings?

Often, studying adjectives does not cause any difficulties, but in any question there are pitfalls. So, for those who still experience difficulties in this topic, in this note we will analyze in detail the order of adjectives in the English language.

Type of adjectives

Everyone has learned since school that an adjective is a part of speech that describes objects, objects and other nouns. Majority English adjectives comes before the described member of the sentence. Traditionally, English distinguishes between objective and subjective adjectives.

Objective adjectives are those that reflect facts, objective characteristics. For example, a brick house. It is a fact that the house is made of brick.
Subjective ones convey a subjective assessment, personal perception of the described object.

Therefore, to describe the order of adjectives in English sentence, the scheme is often used: subjective adjectives come first (since they are less important), then objective (since they are more important), then the noun.

What's going on?

But what if one noun is described by several adjectives? For this case there are more detailed diagram, which will help you decide in what order to place adjectives. Let's look at it:

So, first place is given to adjectives denoting a general opinion/impression, such as expensive, smart, delicious;
The next group determines the size: tiny (large\big), small (small);
Analyzing the order of adjectives in English, the third place is given to the adjective denoting age: young (young), old (old);
The fourth position is occupied by adjectives indicating shape: square;
Next are adjectives denoting colors: yellow;
This group consists of adjectives of origin: Russian;
This group includes adjectives that describe the material from which the item is made: brick;
And finally, the last (that is, the closest to the noun) are adjectives denoting the purpose: for cooking (cooking), for cleaning (cleaning).

Thus, you see that the order of adjectives in English is built according to the importance of the adjective. In this regard, paragraphs 3, 4, 5 can be swapped if the speaker wants to emphasize any quality of the subject. The main rule: the more significant the feature, the closer it is located in relation to the object.

Subtleties to remember when arranging adjectives

If there are several adjectives of the same category, a comma is required between them;
If there is an adjective in the superlative or comparative degree, it occupies the first position;
A group of adjectives that describe a measure can be placed after a noun (a nice building 24 meters high - a beautiful 24-meter building).