Adjectives

What is an adjective?"
Simply put adjectives are descriptive words. Adjectives are used to describe or give information about things, ideas and people: nouns or pronouns. For example:The grey dog barked. (The adjective grey describes the noun "dog".) The most common question an adjective might answer is "What kind of ...?" The good news is that in English the form of an adjective does not change, once you have learnt it that's it and it does not matter if the noun being described is male or female, singular or plural, subject or object. Yay! Some adjectives give us factual information about the noun - age, size colour etc (fact adjectives - can't be argued with). Some adjectives show what somebody thinks about something or somebody - nice, horrid, beautiful etc (opinion adjectives - not everyone may agree). If you are asked questions with which, whose, what kind, or how many, you need an adjective to be able to answer.

There are different types of adjectives in the English language:

Numeric: six, one hundred and one etc. Quantitative: more, all, some, half, more than enough etc. Qualitative: colour, size, smell etc. Possessive: my, his, their, your etc. Interrogative: which, whose, what etc. Demonstrative: this, that, those, these etc.

!Note - The articles a, an, and the are a special kind of adjective called articles, and the possessivesmy, our, your, and their are sometimes known as possessive adjectives.

Colour
Adjectives can be used to describe colour.

blue, red, green, brown, yellow, black, white, etc. For example:

"The blue bag." or "The blue bags".

Opinion
Adjectives can be used to give your opinion about something.

good, pretty, right, wrong, funny, light, happy, sad, full, soft, hard etc. For example:

He was a silly boy. / She was a silly girl.

Size
Adjectives can be used to describe size.

big, small, little, long, tall, short, same as, etc. For example:

"The big man." or "The big woman".

Age
Adjectives can be used to describe age.

For example:

"He was an old man." or "She was an old woman."

Shape
Adjectives can be used to describe shape.

round, circular, triangular, rectangular, square, oval, etc. For example:

"It was a square box." or "They were square boxes."

Origin
Adjectives can be used to describe origin.

For example:

"It was a German flag." or "They were German flags."

Material
Adjectives can be used to identify the material something is made of.

"A wooden cupboard." or "Wooden cupboards."

!Note - In English we often change nouns into adjectives. For example: glass - a glass vase / metal - a metal tray etc.

Distance
Adjectives can be used to describe distance. l -- o -- n -- g / short long, short, far, around, start, high, low, etc. For example:

"She went for a long walk." or "They went for lots of long walks."

Temperature
Adjectives can be used to describe temperature.

cold, warm, hot, cool, etc. For example:

"It was a hot day" or "We eat ice cream on hot days."

Time
Adjectives can be used to describe time.

late, early, bed, nap, dinner, lunch, day, morning, night, etc. For example:

"She had an early start."

Purpose
Adjectives can be used to describe purpose. (These adjectives often end with "-ing".) For example:

"She gave them a sleeping bag." or "She gave them sleeping bags."

!Note - Have you noticed how the adjective stays the same, whether it is describing a masculine, feminine, singular or plural noun? Nice huh? When using more than one adjective to modify a noun, the adjectives may be separated by a conjunction (and) or by commas (,). For example:

"Her hair was long and blonde." or "She had long, blonde hair."

More examples:

Adjective Pretty She is a pretty Example girl.

Serious He was a serious boy.

Fast It could be a fast car.

Quiet They were quiet children.

!Note - Adjectives that go immediately before the noun are called attributive adjectives.

Adjectives can also be used after some verbs. They do not describe the verb, adverbs do that. Adjectives after a verb describe the subject of the verb (usually a noun or pronoun). For example:

"Lynne looks tired." The subject (in this case Lynne) is being described as tired not the verb to look.

There is also the adjective used to, which is such a beast that it gets its own section - Used To.

Articles
First the good news:There are only three articles in English: a, an and the. There are two types of articles indefinite 'a' and 'an' or definite 'the'. You also need to know when not to use an article. The bad news is that their proper use is complex, especially when you get into the advanced use of English. Quite often you have to work it out by what sounds right, which can be frustrating for a learner.

Indefinite articles - a and an (determiners)

A and an are the indefinite articles. They refer to something not specifically known to the person you are communicating with. A and an are used before nouns that introduce something or someone you have not mentioned before:For example "I saw an elephant this morning." "I ate a banana for lunch." A and an are also used when talking about your profession:For example "I am an English teacher." "I am a builder." You use a when the noun you are referring to begins with a consonant (b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y or z), for example, "a city", "a factory", and "a hotel". You use an when the noun you are referring to begins with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) Pronunciation changes this rule. It's the sound that matters, not the spelling.

Note! If the next word begins with a consonant sound when we say it, for example, "university" then we use a. If the next word begins with a vowel sound when we say it, for example "hour" then we use an. We say "university" with a "y" sound at the beginning as though it were spelt "youniversity". So, "a university" IS correct. We say "hour" with a silent h as though it were spelt "our". So, "an hour" IS correct. (Lots of people get this wrong - including native speakers.)

Definite Article - the (determiners)

There are two ways to pronounce "the". One "thuh" and the other "thee". To learn how to pronounce them see the pronunciation files: How to pronounce "the". We use the when you have already mentioned the thing you are talking about. For example: "She's got two children; a girl and a boy. The girl's eight and the boy's fourteen." We use the to talk about geographical points on the globe. For example: the North Pole, the equator We use the to talk about rivers, oceans and seas For example: the Nile, the Pacific, the English channel We also use the before certain nouns when we know there is only one of a particular thing. For example: the rain, the sun, the wind, the world, the earth, the White House etc..

However if you want to describe a particular instance of these you should use a/an. "I could hear the wind." / "There's a cold wind blowing." "What are your plans for the future?" / "She has a promising future ahead of her."

For example:

The is also used to say that a particular person or thing being mentioned is the best, most famous, etc. In this use, 'the' is usually given strong pronunciation whether or not it preceeds a vowel: "Harry's Bar is the place to go." "You don't mean you met the Tony Blair, do you?"

For example:

!Note - The doesn't mean all:"The books are expensive." = (Not all books are expensive, just the ones I'm talking For example: "Books are expensive." = (All books are expensive.) about.)

No article
We usually use no article to talk about things in general:Inflation is rising. People are worried about rising crime. (Note! People generally, so no article) You do not use an article when talking about sports. My son plays football. Tennis is expensive.

For example:

You do not use an article before uncountable nouns when talking about them generally.

For example:

Information is important to any organisation. Coffee is bad for you.

You do not use an article before the names of countries except where they indicate multiple areas or contain the words (state(s), kindom, republic, union). Kingdom, state, republic and union are nouns, so they need an article. No article - Italy, Mexico, Bolivia, England For Use the - the UK (United Kingdom), the USA (United States of

example: America), the Irish Republic Multiple areas! the Netherlands, the Philippines, the British Isles