Adjectives in English (A1)

Adjectives describe nouns — their size, colour, age and quality. This lesson teaches where adjectives go in a sentence and how to use them to make your English more descriptive.

Adjectives in English: the key rules

1. Adjectives describe nouns and come before them, or after the verb be.

   It's a beautiful city. The city is beautiful.

2. Adjectives never take a plural form in English.

   two old houses — never two olds houses

3. When stacking adjectives, opinion comes before fact: size before colour, and so on.

   a lovely little red car

4. -ed adjectives describe feelings; -ing adjectives describe the thing that causes them.

   I'm bored because this film is boring.

Common mistakes (and how to fix them)

• She has two smarts children.

  She has two smart children.

  Adjectives are invariable — no plural -s, ever.

• It's a car red.

  It's a red car.

  English puts the adjective before the noun, unlike Spanish or French.

• I'm very interesting in history.

  I'm very interested in history.

  The person feels -ed; the subject that causes the feeling is -ing.

Practice questions

1. She has ___ eyes. They are very striking.
   bluebluesbleu
2. Choose the correct word order:
   a red cara car redred a car
3. The opposite of "expensive" is ___.
   cheapcheapsslow