Adjective placement

Opinion
>> an interesting movie, an
exciting journey

Dimension
>> a large house, a big car

Age
>> an old boat, a young boy

Shape
>> an oval carpet, a round
table

Origin
>> French bread, a Japanese
town

Colour
>> a grey raincoat, a green
door

Material
>> a plastic bottle, a wooden
treasure

EXAMPLES:
>A wonderful old Italian clock. (opinion - age - origin)
>A big square blue box. (dimension - shape - colour)
>A disgusting pink plastic ornament. (opinion - colour - material)
>Some slim new French trousers. (dimension - age - origin)

A / 'OPINION' ADJECTIVES
Adjectives like nice and dirty are opinion adjectives.They tell us what you think about somebody or
something.
Opinion adjectives usually go before fact adjectives

B / 'FACT' ADJECTIVES
Adjectives like new, old, black are fact adjectives. They give us factual information about, age and
colour.

Sometimes we use two or more fact adjectives. Very often, we put fact adjectives in this
order :

1 / SIZE :

How big ?

Large, small, tiny, enormous

2/

How old ?

New, young, old, ancient

What shape ?

Square, round, rectangular, flat

AGE :

3 / SHAPE :

4 / COLOUR : What colour ?

5 / ORIGIN : Where from ?

Blue, pink, yellow, crimson

English, American, Chinese,French

6 / MATERIAL: What it is made of ?

Plastic, cardboard, glass, wooden

7 / PURPOSE : What it is used for ?

Racing car, frying pan, rocking chair

Examples :
- An interesting (opinion ) old (2) book
- An ugly (opinion) pink (4 ) plastic (6) ornament
- A nice (opinion) small (1) African (5) drum

- A delicious (opinion) round (3) chocolate (6) cake

- A pair of smart( opinion) brown (4) leather (6) boots
- A beautiful (opinion) small (1) white (4) Chinese (5 ) computer
- A nice (opinion) big (1) old (2) square (3) white (4) French (5) china (6) plate *
* This last example comes from the BBC site, but we do not usually put more than three adjectives
together !

*Position of adverbs and adverbial phrases

1- Adverbial phrases which say how,where and when often go in this order:
manner

place

time

Example: They danced very well at the concert last night.

2- After verb of movement, we often put expressions of place first
place

manner

Example: Arco is always late.

He has never surfed web.
3- We place adverbs in initial position to show emphasis.
Example: Usually,Renata doesn't arrive before 8.30.
Never have I seen such a thing.
Hardly had I arrived when