Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about using adjectives in English.
You’ll see basic information about English adjectives, what they do, and how you can
Then, you’ll see some more details about different types of adjectives and what they
mean.
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But now, let’s get back to the lesson.
First, a question: what do adjectives do?
Adjectives describe nouns—they add information to a noun or noun phrase.
For example: ‘The sea was blue and clear.’
The adjectives—‘blue’ and ‘clear’—add information to the noun—‘sea’.
Adjectives can be used in many ways, but there are two common patterns.
First, you can put adjectives directly before the noun they describe, like this: ‘red
‘He gave me an expensive Italian leather wallet.’
Secondly, you can use a linking verb plus an adjective after a noun, like this: ‘She
By the way, what are ‘linking verbs’?
Linking verbs add information to a subject.
Common linking verbs include ‘be’, ‘seem’, ‘become’, ‘feel’ and ‘appear’,
although there are many others.
You don’t need to worry about this right now.
Remember the basic point: adjectives can go before a noun, or after it.
This will become more important later in the lesson—keep watching to find out why!
Here’s another question for you: how can you find the adjectives in a sentence?
There’s no simple answer to this question.
With all parts of speech, it’s better to look at full sentences and think about context
Can you find the adjective or adjectives in each one?
Pause the video if you need more time to think.
You’ll see the answers in a few seconds.
You can see a few useful points here.
Firstly, adjectives don’t look similar to each other.
Adjectives can have many different endings, and they can even end with -ly, like many
Secondly, adjectives also have different forms.
For example, many adjectives have comparative forms, like ‘good-better’, or superlative
forms, like ‘hard-hardest’.
Thirdly, some adjectives are compound, meaning they’re made from two or more other words.
This is common with numbers, as in ‘a 25-year-old man’.
Now, you know some of the basics about adjectives and how to use them.
Let’s go into more detail about different types of adjectives.
Two are right, and two are wrong.
Can you see which sentences are correct?
Do you know why the other two sentences are incorrect?
Pause the video if you need more time to think about it.
Sentences one and four are correct.
Did you get the right answers?
And, can you explain why sentences two and three are incorrect?
To explain this, you need to know about an important idea: gradability.
That means they can have different levels.
For example, ‘nice’ and ‘interesting’ are gradable.
Something can be more interesting, or less interesting.
There are different levels of ‘interesting’.
Some adjectives are ungradable.
That means that they’re binary—either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
For example, ‘unique’ is ungradable.
Either something is unique, or it isn’t.
You can’t have different levels of uniqueness.
Ungradable adjectives have two types.
Firstly, there are words with a strong meaning, like ‘delicious’, ‘exhausted’ or ‘furious’.
Secondly, there are words with an absolute meaning, like ‘unique’, ‘true’ or
‘possible’.
When we talk about ungradable adjectives, we mean both of these types.
Well, there are two important rules you should know.
First, you can’t make comparatives from ungradable adjectives.
You can’t say ‘more delicious’.
You can’t say ‘truer’ or ‘most possible’.
Secondly, if you want to emphasise an adjective by adding a word like ‘very’, ‘really’
or ‘absolutely’ before it, you need to use different words for gradable and ungradable
‘Very’ is used with gradable adjectives.
So, you can say ‘very beautiful’, ‘very cold’ or ‘very funny’, but you can’t
say ‘very gorgeous’, ‘very freezing’ or ‘very hilarious’.
You can’t say ‘very freezing’, but what *can* you say?
With ungradable adjectives, use ‘absolutely’; you can say ‘absolutely freezing’, ‘absolutely
exhausted’ or ‘absolutely unique’.
Use ‘really’, which can be used with both gradable and ungradable adjectives.
So, you can say ‘really cold’ or ‘really freezing’.
Understanding the difference between gradable and ungradable adjectives is important if
you want to use adjectives correctly in English.
There’s also one more important point you should know.
You heard in part one that adjectives can go before the noun, or after the noun if you
So, are these sentences correct, or not?
As always, pause the video if you want to think about it for longer.
All three sentences are incorrect; none of them are possible.
Many adjectives can be used either before or after the noun they describe.
For example, you can say ‘the car is new’ or ‘the new car’.
Both are possible, and it doesn’t change the meaning.
However, some adjectives can only be used in one position: either before or after the
noun.
That’s the problem with the three sentences you saw just now.
‘Asleep’ can only be used after the noun it describes.
You can say ‘The cat is asleep on the wall’, but you can’t say ‘an asleep cat’.
‘Main’ and ‘elder’ are examples of adjectives which can *only* go before the
noun.
So, you could say ‘This is the main problem’ or ‘He is my elder brother.’
Here’s the question: can these adjectives
be used before the noun, after the noun, or in both positions?
To do this, try making sentences with the six adjectives, or go to an online dictionary,
such as the Cambridge dictionary or Longman, and find example sentences.
When you make sentences, try saying them out loud.
Does it sound strange or wrong?
Pause the video and do the test.
You’ll see the answers in a few seconds!
‘Alone’ can only be used after the noun it describes.
For example: ‘He was alone for most of the summer.’
‘Ill’ is also generally used after the noun it describes.
For example: ‘I didn’t work yesterday because my daughter was ill.’
‘Complete’ can be used in both positions.
For example: ‘It was a complete disaster!’
Or, ‘The first stage of the work is now complete.’
‘Only’ is used before the noun.
For example: ‘The only way to do it is to do it yourself.’
‘Unhappy’ can be used in both positions.
For example: ‘They had an unhappy marriage,’ or ‘He didn’t enjoy the last year of school
Finally, ‘afraid’ is only used after the noun.
For example: ‘I was afraid of the dark when I was a child.’
So, you’re probably thinking: how do I know?
How do I know whether an adjective can be used before or after a noun?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer.
Dictionaries don’t usually include this information.
Most adjectives can be used in both positions.
Also, for most adjectives which can’t, you already know the answer.
For example, remember the sentence, ‘The problem is main’?
Most of you knew that this sentence sounded wrong.
Your instincts can be helpful!
Anyhow, now you know about gradability and adjective position.
There’s a reason we’ve shown you these two topics, because our last idea depends
You know that adjectives can be gradable or ungradable, or that they can go before or
after the noun, but in some cases, the same adjective can be used in different ways with
For example, look at these two sentences: ‘She handled the situation in a very professional
way.’
‘She’s a professional tennis player.’
Both these sentences use the adjective ‘professional’, but in different ways.
In the first sentence, ‘professional’ is used as a gradable adjective, and it means
something like ‘effective’ or ‘competent’.
In the second sentence, ‘professional’ is ungradable: it means that playing tennis
is her job, and she makes money from it.
Let’s do another example: ‘Jerome was present at the meeting.’
‘The present situation looks more hopeful than it has for several months.’
Can you explain the difference between these two uses of ‘present’?
In the first sentence, ‘present’ is used after the noun, with a linking verb.
It means that Jerome was there.
In the second sentence, ‘present’ is used before the noun, and it means ‘relating
So, in this case, the adjective has different meanings in different positions.
To be clear, this isn’t flexible.
You can’t choose to use ‘present’ before a noun to mean ‘there’.
If you use ‘present’ before a noun, then it means ‘relating to now’.
So, what should you take away from this?
We aren’t showing you these points because you need to learn lists of all the gradable
This lesson gives you tools to help you understand adjectives more deeply.
The most important point is that adjectives don’t follow one simple set of rules.
Like with all vocabulary, you need to use context to understand what an adjective means
Next—and this is also a general point—one word doesn’t have one meaning.
With adjectives, whether a word is gradable or not can make a difference.
Where an adjective is used can make a difference.
You can’t simply rely on a dictionary or a translator.
Again, you need to understand the context to understand the words.
Do you find anything especially confusing about using English adjectives and adverbs?
Share your ideas in the comments, and maybe you’ll get some help.