Adjective Order in English
- thespanglishspeake
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Did you know that adjectives have an order in English?
Adjective Order in English
As you know, adjectives are used to describe nouns. In a sentence, you might want to use 2 or even 3 adjectives to describe a noun.
But did you know that there is a fixed order in which those adjectives have to be placed? You can’t just link two or three adjectives in a random order! There’s a rule!!
In today’s blog we’re going to look at adjectives and their order!!!
ANOSASCOMP
In Spanish, there’s no real order to the way we describe something. But in English, if you put the adjectives out of their established order it sounds strange to a native speaker. So as always, this is something you need to take into account if you would like your English to sound natural.
There is a mnemonic device to help us remember the order. And that is: “ANOSASCOMP”. If we can remember this, then it will help us place the adjectives in the right order.
A: article (a, an, the)
N: number (many, few, several, 3)
O: opinion (nice, ugly, beautiful, horrible)
S: size (small, tiny, huge, large, big)
A: age (old, ancient, young, new)
S: shape (round, oval, square, flat)
C: colour (red, orange, yellow, blue)
O: origin (Spanish, American, Colombian, French)
M: material (plastic, metallic, wooden, cotton)
P: purpose (cooking, gardening, sleeping, reading)
Some Example Sentences:
There are many old wooden chairs in the garage. (quantity, age, material)
I bought a stylish black leather jacket. (opinion, colour, material)
Look at that cute little puppy! (opinion, size)
He bought two fancy old metal lamps. (number, opinion, age, material)
They adopted an adorable tiny ginger kitten. (opinion, size, colour)
We found an antique round wooden table in the shop. (age, shape, material)
I can’t find my stylish reading glasses. Have you seen them? (opinion, purpose)
Do you like my brown leather riding boots? (colour, material, purpose)
Conclusion
As with everything, you need to invest some time and energy to remember this rule. The internet as always is an excellent resource with endless sites where you can practice just this. Pay attention when reading a text to see if you can spot two or more adjectives and then determine their order. Make an effort when you’re speaking to include two or more adjectives in your descriptions. Practice with flashcards.
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