ORDER OF ADJECTIVES

What do you see?

This man is drinking a black
coffee. It taste strong. It is an
Italian Coffee
How would you combine it?

Black
Coffee
Strong
Italian
WHY?
• The only possible answer is “Strong Black Italian Coffee”

Why?
Remember about adjective first! What is adjectives?
It is words that describe nouns. A phrase that uses more than one
adjective to describe noun is called adjectival phrase. ‘Strong Italian
Black Coffee” is the example of adjectival phrase. Most adjectival
phrase come before the noun they describe.
RULE 1 : OPINION FIRST, FACTS
SECOND
• Adjectives of opinion:
• nice, beautiful, delicious, ugly, etc.
• Adjectives of facts:
• big, new, green, etc.

• Example,
• They live in a beautiful old house on the edge of the city
• We had some delicious Korean food with some friends.
• Why are you wearing those ugly purple trousers?
• She has an interesting new perspective on the economic situation.
RULE 2 : GENERAL IDEAS FIRST,
SPECIFIC NEXT
• Example,
• “A long wooden table.”
• Long is general, street, story, day, speech, etc.
• Wooden is specific only several things can be wooden.

• Adjectives with general meaning : hot, small, old, new, etc.

• Adjectives with specific meaning : green, striped, French, etc.
Example
• He works for a small Canadian company
• I love these old black-and-white films.
• We bought a new leather sofa for the living room.
• I need to buy a really warm woolly hat.
THE ORDER
Example,
She bought a beautiful long new black-and-white Burmese silk scarf.
• 1. beautiful : opinion
• 2. long : size
• 3. new : age
• 4. black-and-white : colour
• 5. striped : pattern
• 6. Burmese : origin / nationality
• 7. silk : material
Notes :
• When you use adjectives from the same category, separate the
adjectives with commas.
• Example,
• The refugees want to have successful, positive lives. (both are
opinions)
• It is also usually comes with determiner at the beginning of the
sentence, such as
• a, the, a few, some, an, etc.