English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs.
Khelkhal
Parts of speech 5: Adjectives
How many adjectives are there?
An excellent choice for an independent summer holiday, these large apartments are along an inland
waterway in a quiet residential area. The friendly resort of Gulftown with its beautiful white sandy
beach is only a short walk away.
1. Definition
Adjectives are words that modify (describe) nouns. We use adjectives to answer the question:
➢ What... like? What's the area like? ~ Oh, it's very quiet.
➢ What kind of...? What kind of area is it? ~ Mainly residential.
Some adjectives can be identified by their endings: careful salty global useless active capable
dangerous terrific
2. Position
Adjectives can come in 2 positions:
a. Attributive position: (before nouns): a rich man a happy girl
b. Predicative position: after a verb such as be, become, seem, appear, feel, get/grow (=
become), keep, look (= appear), make, smell, sound, taste, turn: He got/grew impatient He
made her happy
3. Comparison
Positive Comparative Superlative
Dark Darker Darkest
Tall Taller Tallest
Useful More useful Most useful
➢ Short (One-syllable) adjectives form their comparative and superlative by adding er and
est to the positive form: bright brighter brightest
➢ Long adjectives (three or more syllables) form their comparative and superlative by
putting more and most before the positive form: interested more interested
most interested
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English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs. Khelkhal
➢ Adjectives of two syllables follow one or other of the previous rules: clever cleverer
cleverest obscure more obscure most obscure
• Irregular adjectives :
Positive Comparative Superlative
Bad Worse Worst
Good Better Best
Far Farther (distance) Farthest
Further (additional) Furthest
Old Older (people/things ) Oldest
Elder (people only) Eldest
4. The+ adjective
❖ These expressions have a plural meaning; they take a plural verb and the pronoun is they:
The poor get poorer, the rich get richer.
5. Adjectives ending in ing and ed
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English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs. Khelkhal
6. Order of adjectives
When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a
particular order. Adjectives which describe opinions or attitudes (e.g. amazing) usually come first,
before more neutral, factual ones (e.g. red):
She was wearing an amazing red coat. Not: … red amazing coat
If we don’t want to emphasise any one of the adjectives, the most usual sequence of adjectives is:
Order of adjective Meaning of adjective examples
1 opinion unusual, lovely, beautiful
2 size big, small, tall
3 physical quality thin, rough, untidy
4 shape round, square, rectangular
5 age young, old, youthful
6 colour blue, red, pink
7 origin Dutch, Japanese, Turkish
8 material metal, wood, plastic
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English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs. Khelkhal
9 type general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped
10 purpose cleaning, hammering, cooking
Examples:
➢ It was made of a strange, green, metallic material.
1 6 8
➢ It’s a long, narrow, plastic brush.
2 4 8
➢ Panettone is a round, Italian, bread-like Christmas cake.
4 7 9
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English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs. Khelkhal
Exercises about Adjectives
Exercise One: Complete each sentence with a verb (in the correct form) and an adjective from the
boxes.
feel look seem awful fine interesting
smell sound taste nice upset wet
1 Helen …………………………………..……. this morning. Do you know what was wrong?
2 I can't eat this. I've just tried it and it .................................
3 I wasn't very well yesterday, but I …………………………….…….. today.
4 What beautiful flowers! They ............................................... too.
5 You ........................................ Have you been out in the rain?
6 James was telling me about his new job. It ....................................... much better than his old job.
Exercise Two: Complete the sentences. Use a superlative (-est/ most) or a comparative (-er/
more).
1 We stayed at the ……………………………………. hotel in the town, (cheap)
2 Our hotel was ……………………………. than all the others in the town, (cheap)
3 The United States is very large, but Canada is .. ......................................... (large)
4 What's................................. country in the world? (small)
5 I wasn't feeling well yesterday, but I feel a bit ……………. today, (good)
6 It was an awful day. It was ........ ......................... day of my life, (bad)
7 What is ................................................ sport in your country? (popular)
8 Everest is ................................................. mountain in the world. It is .................................... than
any other mountain, (high)
9 This building is over 250 metres high, but it's not ................................. in the city. (tall)
10 I prefer this chair to the other one. It's ………………………..………………… (comfortable)
11 What's ……………………………………….. way to get to the station? (quick)
12 Which is...................................... the bus or the train? (quick)
13 What's ……………………….. thing you've ever bought? (expensive)
14 Sue and Kevin have got three daughters.....................................................is 14 years old. (old)
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English Grammar / First Year LMD / Groups : 5 and 6 / Teacher: Mrs. Khelkhal
Exercise Three: Rewrite the sentences using a phrase with “the + an adjective” instead of the
underlined phrases
We live near a special school for people who can't hear. ………………………………………………………………
People who have lots of money have comfortable lives…………………………………………………………………
The government should do more for people who do not have enough money. ……………………
…………………………….
I'm doing a course on caring for people who are handicapped. ……………………………………….
Exercise Four: Complete each sentence using a word from the box (choose the right form).
amusing/amused annoying/annoyed boring/bored
confusing/confused disgusting/disgusted exciting/excited
exhausting/exhausted interesting/interested surprising/surprised
1 He works very hard. It's not ……………………..………….. that he's always tired.
2 I've got nothing to do. I'm .........................................
3 The teacher's explanation was ................................... . Most of the students didn't understand it.
4 The kitchen hadn't been cleaned for ages. It was really ………………………. .
5 I don't visit art galleries very often. I'm not particularly ……………………….. in art.
6 There's no need to get ……………………… just because I'm a few minutes late.
7 The lecture was ……………………….. . I fell asleep.
8 I've been working very hard all day and now I'm …………………………………...
9 I’m starting a new job next week. I'm very ………………………….about it.
10 Steve is good at telling funny stories. He can be very …………………….. .
11 Helen is a very …………………….person. She knows a lot, she's travelled a lot and she's done lots of
different things.