{"id":2957,"date":"2016-03-10T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2957"},"modified":"2019-03-11T14:41:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T21:41:10","slug":"adjectives-and-word-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/adjectives-and-word-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Adjectives and Word Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to producing really good language, adjectives that describe things are the spice of life. In any language, good writers are praised for the ability to write descriptions that are varied and creative.<\/p>\n<p>One of the trickiest things about adjective use in English is that different adjectives need to go in different orders. A phrase that contains adjectives and a noun must put its words in the following order (with adjectives of size listed first and adjectives of purpose listed last, right before the noun):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">opinion(1<sup>st<\/sup>)&gt;size(2<sup>nd<\/sup>)&gt;shape(3<sup>rd<\/sup>)&gt;condition(4<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;age(5<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;color(6<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;pattern(7<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;origin(8<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 material(9<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;purpose(10<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;noun<\/p>\n<p>There are three other less common types of adjectives not listed in the adjective order rules above: adjectives of order (first, second, third, last, etc\u2026) and adjectives of frequency (frequent, infrequent, rare, common, etc\u2026), and adjectives of degree (extreme, a little, somewhat, very, etc\u2026). When these three types of adjectives are used, they must appear at the very beginning of a string of adjectives, with order at the beginning, followed by frequency, with degree coming in third. So the full order or adjectives in English actually looks like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">order(1<sup>st<\/sup>)&gt;frequency(2<sup>nd<\/sup>)&gt;degree(3<sup>rd<\/sup>)&gt;opinion(4<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;size(5<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;shape(6<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;condition(7<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;age(8<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;color(9<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;pattern(10<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;origin(11<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;material(12<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;purpose(13<sup>th<\/sup>)&gt;noun<\/p>\n<p>This long, elaborate adjective order list can look confusing at first. What does it mean, and why is it important? Well, for one thing, the fact that adjectives in English must be listed in a specific order means that listing them out of order can be confusing to native English speakers.<\/p>\n<p>In an extreme case, suppose you were to describe something using all 13 adjective types. You\u2019d probably have to do it in writing, because speaking out a string of thirteen adjectives would be really hard for anyone to follow. But even in writing, a description that long could be a little bit challenging to readers. Your only hope of being understood when you give such a long description is \u00a0to list the adjectives in the completely correct order. Otherwise, your description would seem highly unnatural and be very difficult to follow.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s try a long description to see how word order works\u2026 and doesn\u2019t work. I\u2019ll describe a piece of art, with a photo of the art below my description:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is the first uncommon, very strange, humongous, round, worn-out, ancient, dark, grooved Korean clay food-storing pottery I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2959 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2016\/03\/aawo_img2-e1478775089296-216x300.jpg\" alt=\"aawo_img2\" width=\"216\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2016\/03\/aawo_img2-e1478775089296-216x300.jpg 216w, https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2016\/03\/aawo_img2-e1478775089296.jpg 462w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Photo by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/koreafilm.ro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/silla.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">koreafilm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Look at the sentence above the pictured carefully and compare it to the 13-word adjective order I showed you. You\u2019ll find that all adjectives are listed in correct sequence, with adjective-of-order first, adjective-of-frequency second, adjective of opinion third, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>A native English speaker could do reasonably well at understanding the sentence above, especially with the added commas to separate different parts of the adjective list. However, with the adjectives not following the correct order, the sentence becomes almost unreadable. To really confuse a native user of English, try showing them this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This is the uncommon, strange, dark, humongous, food-storing, grooved, clay, Korean, first worn-out, ancient, round, very pottery I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With the order taken out of place, this sentence comes off as bizarre and nonsensical. Of course, an actual 13-adjective description would be very uncommon in English. But if you remove some adjectives to create a shorter description, the rules still apply: adjective types from earlier in the sequence must appear before adjective types that go later in the 1 through 13 order.<\/p>\n<p>You can say the pot above is an \u201cuncommon, very strange pot,\u201d but you can\u2019t describe it as \u201cstrange very uncommon\u201d without your description sounding a little \u201coff.\u201d And you could say the pot is \u201cthe first humongous, ancient, grooved food-storing pot,\u201d but you can\u2019t say it\u2019s \u201cthe grooved, ancient, humungous, food-storing, first pot.\u201d That sounds weird, and readers would struggle to understand the adjectives if they appeared out of order in that way. Practice this word ordering in <a href=\"http:\/\/english.printexpress.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this interactive online game.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now that we\u2019ve gotten the trickiest thing about adjectives out of the way, we can work on the second trickiest adjective skill\u2014knowing <em>enough<\/em> of them. To create really well-written English descriptions, you need a lot of variety in your vocabulary. In my next post on this subject, we\u2019ll do a vocabulary-building exercise using adjectives to describe things.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to producing really good language, adjectives that describe things are the spice of life. In any language, good writers are praised for the ability to write descriptions that are varied and creative. One of the trickiest things about adjective use in English is that different adjectives need to go in different orders. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13603],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Adjectives and Word Order - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When it comes to producing really good language, adjectives that describe things are the spice of life. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0%2C50&amp;q=Recine+magoosh&amp;btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}