ENGLISH TRIVIA - 4 | 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 possessives my, 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	Serious	Fast	Quiet
For Example:	She is a pretty girl.	He was a serious boy.	It could be a fast car.	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 something

They say you can get used to anything.

The use of used to do something is explained here. However, used to has another meaning, it can be used as an adjective and we use it to talk about things that have become familiar, and are no longer strange or new.

Used to usually comes after verbs such as be, get or become.

• After a while you get used to the noise.
• She will become used to the smell.
• I was used to the web site.

You can also say that someone is used to doing something.

• I'll never get used to getting up at six o'clock in the morning.
• It took me a while until I was used to driving on the right-hand side of the road.

PICTURE THIS - ADJECTIVES - COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE

This is a box.

BIG | SMALL

This is a small box.

This is a big box.

BIGGER / SMALLER | BIGGEST / SMALLEST

	The blue box is bigger than the green box.		The blue box is smaller thanthe red box.
The green box is smaller thanthe red box and the blue box. The green box is the smallestbox.				The red box is bigger than the blue box and the green box. The red box is the biggestbox.

HIGHER / LOWER | HIGHEST / LOWEST

Mount Snowdon 1,085 metres	Mount Fuji is higher than Mount Snowdon.	Mount Fuji 3,776 metres	Mount Fuji is higher than Mount Snowdon, but lower than Mount Everest.	Mount Everest   8,848 metres
Mount Snowdon is the lowest mountain.				Mount Everest is the highest mountain.

LONGER / SHORTER | LONGEST / SHORTEST

River Danube 2,850 (km)	The river Amazon is longer than the river Danube.	River Amazon 6,516 (km)	The river Amazon is longer than the river Danube, but shorter than the river Nile.	River Nile 6,695 (km)
The river Danube is the shortest river.				The river Nile is the longest river.

CHEAPER / MORE (LESS) EXPENSIVE | CHEAPEST / MOST (LEAST) EXPENSIVE

John's car cost £15,000	John's car was less expensive than Jane's car. It's cheaper than Jane's car.	Jane's car cost £25,000	Jane's car is more expensive than John's car, but less expensive than Bill's car.	Bill's car cost £55,000
John's car is the least expensive car. It's the cheapest car.				Bill's car is the most expensive car.

ThankJu !!