Adjectives and Adverbs

ADJECTIVES

ex: This is a small village. It looks peaceful. There are some lovely old houses.

♦ Adjectives describe nouns (a big car). They have the same form in the singular and plural, e.g. a small house small houses

♦ Adjectives go before nouns, e.g. a beautiful girl. They can also be used alone after the verb to be and after verbs such as look, smell, sound, feel, taste, etc. e.g. Jack is tall. You look sad

♦ There are two kinds of adjectives: opinion adjectives (beautiful, good, etc.), which show what a person thinks of somebody or something, and fact adjectives (long, strong, young, etc.), which give us factual information about age, size, colour, etc.

ORDER OF ADJECTIVES

♦ Opinion adjectives go before fact adjectives. e.g. a beautiful silk dress

♦ When there are two or more fact adjectives in a sentence, they usually go in the following order:

Size Age Shape Colour Origin Material

a small old square blue Thai silk scarf

♦ We do not usually have a long list of adjectives before a single noun. A noun is usually described by one, two or three adjectives at the most.

e.g. an expensive Persian silk carpet

ADVERBS

ex:Farmers wake up early in the morning.
     They work hard all day.
     They go home late in the evening.

♦ An adverb can be one word (carefully) or a phrase (in the park). Adverbs show manner (how), place (where), time (when), frequency (how often), etc.

e.g. He drives carefully.

(How does he drive? Carefully. - adverb of manner)

Your coat is here.

(Where is it? Here. - adverb of place)

He left for Italy yesterday.

(When did he leave? Yesterday. - adverb of time)

He usually eats out.

(How often does he eat out? Usually. • adverb of frequency)

♦ Adverbs usually go after verbs, e.g. He walks slowly

♦ Adverbs of frequency go after auxiliary verbs and the verb to be, but before main verbs.

e.g. He is always on time for appointments. He has never visited Paris. He always comes to work on time.

Formation of adverbs

♦ We usually form an adverb by adding -ly to the adjective.

e.g. dangerous • dangerously

♦ Adjectives ending in -le drop the -e and take -y.

e.g. gentle - gently

♦ Adjectives ending in consonant + y drop the -y and take -lly.

e.g. easy - easily

♦ Adjectives ending in take -ly.

e.g. wonderful - wonderfully

*Some adverbs are not formed according to the above rules. They have either a totally different form or the same form as the adjective.

Adjective                    Adverb

good                              well

fast                               fast

hard                              hard

early                            early

late                              late

ORDER OF ADVERBS

♦ When there are two or more adverbs in the same sentence, they usually come in the following order:

                            manner —-- place --— time 

                            (how)          (where)     (when)

                                 |                   |                |

  He was studying hard     in his room     last night.

♦ If there is a verb of movement (go, come, leave, etc.) in the sentence, then the adverbs come in the following order:

                 place — manner — time 

                (where)    (how)  (when)

                      |              |                |

She came home by bus     yesterday.