Chronicle Editor
SOMETIMES we use two or more adjectives together: Richard lives in a nice new house. In the kitchen there was a beautiful large round wooden table.
Adjectives like new/large/round/wooden are fact adjectives. They give us objective information about something (age, size, and colour). Adjectives like nice/beautiful are opinion adjectives. They tell us what someone thinks of something. Opinion adjectives usually go before fact adjectives:
Examples: a nice (opinion) sunny (fact) day; delicious (opinion) hot (fact) soup; an intelligent (opinion) young (fact) man and a beautiful (opinion) large round wooden (fact) table. Sometimes there are two or more fact adjectives. Very often (but not always) we put fact adjectives in this order: how big? How old? What colour? Where from? What is it made of? – Noun. – a tall young man; big blue eyes; a small black plastic bag; a large wooden table; an old Chinese song, an old white cotton shirt.
Adjectives of size and length (big/small/ tall/short and long usually go before adjectives of shape and width (round/fat/thin/slim/wide etc. –a large round table; a tall thin woman; a long narrow tunnel. We also use adjectives after feel, taste, sound, seem, look. –Do you feel tired? The dinner smells good. Alfred sounded angry when I spoke to him on the phone. The tea tastes a bit strange. Your friend seems very nice.
But after other verbs you must use an adverb. –Drive carefully! (not ‘drive careful’) Daisy plays the piano very well. (not ‘plays… very good’). Henry shouted at me angrily. (not ‘shouted . . . angry’). Look – We use an adjective after look when it means seem. –Luke looked sad when I saw him. But after look at we use an adverb: Luke looked at me sadly. Try this exercise: Choose the right word, adjective or adverb.
Examples: The dinner smells good/well. The dinner smells good. Drive careful. Drive carefully. Please shut the door quiet/quietly. Can you be quiet/quietly, please? This soup tastes nice/nicely. Roger cooks very good/well. Don’t go up that ladder. It doesn’t look safe/safely. We were relieved that he arrived safe/safely after his long journey. Do you feel nervous/nervously before examinations? Hurry up! You’re always so slow/slowly. He looked at me angry/angrily when I interrupted him.
Adjectives and adverbs – quick /quickly. Consider the following examples: -Our vacation was too short – the time went quickly. The driver of the car was seriously injured in the accident. Quickly and seriously are adverbs. Many adverbs are made from an adjective + -ly. Adjectives: quick, serious, careful, quiet, heavy and bad. Adverbs: quickly, seriously, carefully, quietly, heavily and badly.
Not all words ending in –ly are adverbs. Some adjectives end in –ly too. For example: friendly, lively, elderly, lonely, silly, and lovely. Adjective or adverb? An adjective tells us more about a noun. We use adjectives before nouns and after a few verbs (especially be)): Robert is a careful driver. Be quiet, please! We didn’t go out because of the heavy rain. I was disappointed that my results were so bad. An adverb tells us more about a verb. An adverb tells us in what way someone does something or in what way something happens. She walked slowly to school. (not walked slow). –Speak quietly, please! (not speak quiet). We didn’t go out because it was raining heavily. (not raining heavy). I was disappointed that I did so badly in the exam. (not ‘did so bad).
Compare: She speaks perfect English. (adjective + noun). She speaks English perfectly. (verb + object + adverb). We also use adverbs before adjectives and other adverbs. –reasonably cheap – (adverb + adjective), terribly sorry – (adverb +adjective), incredibly quickly – (adverb + adverb). For example: -It’s a reasonably cheap restaurant and the food is extremely good. Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to push you. Thoko learns languages incredibly quickly.
I was bitterly disappointed that I didn’t get the job. The examination was surprisingly easy. You can use an adverb before a past participle (injured/organised). The meeting was very badly organised. The driver of the car was seriously injured in the accident. The building was totally destroyed in the fire.
Relative clauses – clauses with or without who/that. Look at this example used before: The man who lives next door is very friendly or that lives) –Where are the eggs that were in the fridge? or ‘which were’). In these sentences who and that are subjects of the verbs in the relative clauses: the man lives next door, the eggs were in the fridge. You cannot leave out who or that in these sentences. Sometimes who and that are objects of the verbs:
The man I wanted to see (him) was on holiday. The man (who or that) I wanted to see was away on holiday. –Have you found the keys? – you lost them. Have you found the keys (that) you lost? When, who or that are objects of the verb in the relative clause, you can leave them out.
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