222 Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know – and How to Teach It
Quantifying
Another use of adjectives is to say how many of an item there are.
Adjectives related to quantity can range from a simple number (one, a thou-
sand, a million) to words like these: each, every, either, neither, both, any,
some, none, more, many, all, few and enough.
Using adjectives in order
Once students get the hang of what an adjective is, they put them in all over
the place. Unfortunately, that creates another problem because sentences
can sound somewhat odd if you don’t put the adjectives in the right order.
The sentence ‘There’s a German, old, ugly car in the street’. is very easy to
understand but just doesn’t sound right. Surely it should be: ‘There’s an ugly,
old, German car in the street’.
You need to teach your students a rule for lining up their adjectives. In real-
ity, you can’t cover every line up of adjectives possible, but Table 15-1 offers
a guide which works most of the time.
Table 15-1 Example of Adjective Order
Whose/
Which
How
Many
Opinion Size/
Shape
Age Colour Origin What It’s
Made Of
What
It’s For
a few great oval old golden Japanese acrylic coffee
his ninety awful narrow new white American straw driving
these two rude tall young bright Tribal ice bath
For example you can describe items this way: those twenty fantastic, beige,
ceramic flower pots and my funny, blue, Aboriginal wall hanging.
Expanding on verbs with adverbs
Adverbs are words that describe verbs. They say how the verb is carried out
and, like adjectives, they make sentences more interesting. The same accurate
but dull sentence used in the section on adjectives – She sits on the sofa – offers
no evidence of how she sits. You can ask the student for more information, and
may be presented with: She sits elegantly on the sofa.
Now you can imagine how she sits because of the word ‘elegantly’, which is
an adverb. She may also sit lazily, well or sleepily as these are all adverbs too.
