Lezione settimanale 1

Adjective word order

When we use more than one adjective, we normally have to put them in a certain order.

I live in a beautiful old house is natural

I live in an old beautiful house is not natural

Why? Well "beautiful" is your opinion but "old" is a fact and we normally put the opinion before the fact. Look at these other examples of good English.

a nice young woman

some delicious hot soup

Sometimes we want to use more than one fact adjective and then the following order applies in many cases (but not always)

1. How big?
2. How old?
3. What colour?
4. Where from?
5. What made of?

an old wooden toy

a large French book

a large old green leather jacket

Another general guide to use is that the more specific the adjective, the closer it comes to the noun.

However, these "rules" are no better than a general guide. Look out for examples when you are reading and try to see why the writer has put the adjectives in that particular order.

Excercise 1