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Order of adjectives

In many languages, adjectives denoting attributes usually occur in a specific order.


Generally, the adjective order in English is:

One of the easiest ways to identify a non-native English speaker is by


the incorrect order of adjectives in a sentence.
For example:

A red big ball INCORRECT


A big red ball CORRECT
A velvet new comfortable dress INCORRECT
A comfortable new velvet dress CORRECT
An old ceramic lovely coffee mug INCORRECT
A lovely old ceramic coffee mug CORRECT

If you can master the correct adjective order, your English will sound
very natural!
In general, the correct order of adjectives in English is:
1
Opini
on

Size

Sha
pe

Age

Col
or

Nationality/Ori
gin

Materi
al

Purpo
se

Note: Not everyone agrees on this order, and there may be


exceptions
Its rare to use more than 3 adjectives. But the adjectives you do use
should follow this order:
A big (size) red (color) ball
A comfortable (opinion) new (age) velvet (material) dress
A lovely (opinion) old (age) ceramic (material) coffee (purpose)

mug

Here are some examples of each type of adjective:

OPINION ADJECTIVES

good / bad / great / terrible


beautiful / pretty / sexy / comfortable
ugly / awful / strange / uncomfortable
delicious / disgusting / tasty / nasty
important / excellent / wonderful / brilliant
funny / interesting / boring

GENERAL SIZE ADJECTIVES

big / huge / tall / long / enormous / gigantic


small / little / tiny / short / minuscule

SHAPE ADJECTIVES

Round / square / triangular / rectangular / flat

AGE ADJECTIVES

old / ancient
new / young

COLOR ADJECTIVES

Red, blue, yellow, etc.

NATIONALITY/ORIGIN ADJECTIVES

Italian, Japanese, Thai, German, French, etc.

MATERIAL ADJECTIVES

Gold, silver, copper


Cotton, leather, polyester, wool, silk, velvet, nylon
Wooden, stone, diamond, plastic

PURPOSE ADJECTIVES
Purpose adjectives are almost like part of the noun. They describe
what the object is used for:

running shoes
a sleeping bag
a flower vase
a frying pan
a tennis racket

OTHER ADJECTIVES

There are other adjectives that dont fall into the categories above.
For these, the essential rule to remember is that opinion
adjectives always come before fact adjectives (appearance and
other descriptive adjectives):
delicious (opinion) organic (fact) food
crazy (opinion) religious (fact) people
interesting (opinion) cultural (fact) traditions
confusing (opinion) financial (fact) data

HOW TO LEARN THE CORRECT


ORDER OF ADJECTIVES
Although studying the order of adjectives in English can help there
reaches a point where youll learn them best simply by seeing and
hearing them in action. Most native English speakers dont know the

rules of adjective order at all we just know that it sounds right to


say the big red ball and sounds wrong to say the red big ball.

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