Brighter Grammar 1 - Margaret Macaulay 1987

Lesson Six. Adjectives

If I say to you,

A man came into the room

the noun man doesn’t make a clear picture in your mind.

If I say,

A thin man came into the room

I limit the meaning of the noun man: you don’t see in your mind a fat man or even a man of ordinary shape, only a thin man.

The word thin is an adjective. It tells us what kind of man we mean by our noun man.

We use an adjective with a noun to Limit the meaning of the noun. The adjective qualifies the noun.

Here are some more examples:

The words man, book, box, egg, rabbit are nouns. The words fat, thin, old, new, heavy, light, good, bad, white, black all tell us something about the meaning of these nouns. They tell us what kind of man, what kind of book, what kind of egg, etc. They are adjectives.

You will notice that in English the adjective usually goes before the noun.

a red flower

a big dog

a long journey

In later lessons you will see some exceptions.

Adjectives of the kind we have looked at in Lesson 6 (the words that tell us ’what kind’) are adjectives of quality.

Exercises

A Put suitable adjectives before each of the following nouns.

Example: car

Answer: a red car

1 house 4 book 7 lion 10 headache

2 day 5 boy 8 train 11 flower

3 dinner 6 tree 9 river 12 dog

В Pick out the adjectives in the following sentences.

Example: Look at that old black car.

Answer: old, black

1 They live in a big red house.

2 Lloyd is a clever boy.

3 This plant has small yellow flowers.

4 Mr Chung is a kind man.

5 The camel is a very useful animal.

6 In New York they have warm weather in summer and cold weather in winter.

7 Mary has a new green jumper.

8 Lions are strong, fierce animals.

9 Cairo is a large, busy city.

10 These small apples have a sweet taste.

C Complete these sentences with adjectives from the box.

We have filled in number 1 for you.

nasty cold new big sweet black

favourite hot interesting small

1 The man bought а new car.

2 The teacher gave us an ... lesson.

3 Henry has broken his ... knife.

4 An elephant is a ... animal, a mouse is a ... one.

5 Do you like ... apples?

6 In my country we have ... weather in summer and ... weather in winter.

7 Have you seen a ... cow? We have lost it.

8 Mr Brown is not a ... man.

D Read this short story. Then make 2 columns with the headings adjectives and nouns. In the first column write down each adjective you find in the story. In the second column write the noun that the adjective goes with. We have printed the adjectives and nouns from the first sentence for you as an example.

The woodcutter and the fairy

A poor woodcutter was cutting a big piece of wood near a wide river. Suddenly his old axe slipped from his hand and fell into the deep water. He was a sad man because he had lost his only axe. But suddenly a lovely, bright fairy ap­peared.

’What’s the matter?’ she asked the unhappy woodcutter.

’I have lost my old axe,’ he said. ’It fell into the deep water.’

The fairy showed him a gold axe and said, ’Is this yours?’

’No,’ said the woodcutter.

The fairy then showed him a silver axe and said again in her clear voice, ’Is this yours?’

’No,’ answered the woodcutter.

Then she showed him a common, iron axe with an old, wooden handle.

’Yes, that's mine,’ said the happy woodcutter.

’I know,’ said the kind fairy. ’I only wanted a true answer. You are an honest man, so I can give you the gold axe and the silver axe as well as the old iron axe.’