Home > Order of Adjectives

Order of Adjectives

Share this
4.1
(16)

Welcome to our Order of Adjectives Exercises. Let’s learn how to use adjectives in the correct order to describe people and things when using more than one adjective. It is important to learn how to use them properly at this expanding stage of English where there is more focus on academic tasks and language functions. These Order of Adjectives Exercises show you how we use most adjective in front of nouns to describe people and things after determiners and numbers.

About 20 minutes.Learning how to use adjective in the correct order.Expanding stage of learning English.

Instructions

  1. Watch the video about order of adjectives
  2. Find the matching words.
  3. Complete Exercise 1-3
  4. Read the examples if you need help.
VideoMatch-upExercise 1Exercise 2Exercise 3Examples
Decide if the sentence is correct or incorrect.

We can use most adjective in front of nouns to describe people and things after determiners and numbers.

  • She had a beautiful smile.
  • He bought a cup of black coffee.
  • There were six new students in my class this year.

We often want to add more information to a noun, so we can use more than one adjective. We use this order for adjectives:

size → age → shape → colour →nationality → material

sizeageshapecolournationalitymaterialnoun
oldwoodenhouse
bigredbus
antiqueChinesevase
smallroundcoppercoin
largeblackcat
hugesquarecheesesandwich

Adjectives belong to six main types, but it is unlikely to use all six types in the same sentence.

We don’t usually use more than three adjectives to describe a noun.

  • The man was wearing an old black leather jacket.
  • The house had a big red wooden door.
  • He found an old round copper coin on the beach.

If we want to use an age adjective and a nationality adjective, we put the age adjective first.

  • We met some young Spanish boys.
  • I bought a new German car.

Similarly, a shape adjective normally comes before a colour adjective.

  • I have a round green table in my bedroom.
  • They carried the square white window frame into the house.

Note that material means any substance, not only cloth.

  • The man left a large black plastic bag on the beach.
  • The women wanted a large gold chain for her birthday.
Especially helpful are exercises that are focussed on a theme or topic as these provide word retention practice so you can be confident to read, write, speak and listen successfully. We have many activities to get your English up to speed in no time.
The more words you encounter and understand, the broader your day-to-day vocabulary will become. Our word games and puzzles are an excellent way to help to reinforce spellings in your mind.
Cambridge English Examinations:

Cambridge English exams are designed for learners at all levels from the Elementary level Cambridge English: Key (KET) to the very advanced level Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE). These exams give candidates proof of their ability to use English in a wide variety of contexts, relevant to work, study and leisure activities.

A2 Key | B1 Preliminary | B2 First

How useful were these activities?

Click on a trophy to rate them!

Average rating 4.1 / 5. Vote count: 16

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.