Grammar

Adjectives in English

2,600 fill-in-the-gap exercises across 5 forms

Words that describe a noun. They never change for number or gender — the only thing that changes is degree.

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Two positions

Before the noun: a cold morning, an expensive hotel

After a linking verb: The morning was cold. The hotel looks expensive.

The linking verbs are be, seem, look, sound, feel, taste, smell, become, get, stay. After them comes an adjective, not an adverb: It smells good, not smells well.

They never change

No plural, no gender, no agreement of any kind:

a red car, two red cars, a red house

Comparative and superlative

The rule is about length:

• one syllable: add -er and -est. tall → taller → the tallest
• two syllables ending in -y: -ier and -iest. happy → happier → the happiest
• two syllables otherwise, and all longer words: more and the most. careful → more careful → the most careful

Spelling: double a final consonant after one short vowel (big → bigger), and drop a silent -e (large → larger).

Four irregulars have to be learned: good → better → best, bad → worse → worst, far → further → furthest, little → less → least.

The order of several adjectives

When more than one adjective sits before a noun, English follows a fixed order that native speakers never think about:

opinion — size — age — shape — color — origin — material — purpose

a lovely little old round red Italian wooden dining table

Nobody writes sentences like that, but two or three adjectives follow the same sequence: a big black dog, not a black big dog.

-ing and -ed adjectives

A pair that changes meaning:

• -ing describes the thing that causes the feeling: The film was boring.
• -ed describes the person who feels it: I was bored.

I am boring says something quite different from I am bored.

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Mistakes to avoid