ADJECTIVE ORDER-OPINION-FACT

Hello and welcome back to the Daily Vitamin. I hope you had a great weekend and I hope your week has started off well.

When we describe people or things we sometimes use two or more adjectives together. In the English language there is a standard order for using adjectives according to their class.

This week we are going to learn some of these adjective classes. Before we begin, remember this basic rule of word order in English: ADJECTIVES GO BEFORE NOUNS.

CORRECT: A big house.
INCORRECT: A house big. 

This order is opposite to many Latin-based languages, like Spanish or Catalan.

Position 1: Adjectives of Opinion: Adjectives that state a personal opinion or subjective information usually go in the first position.

Opinion adjectives include words like: nice, interesting, beautiful, ugly, dull, delicious, lovely.

Position 2: Adjectives of Fact: Adjectives that state a fact or objective information usually go in the second position.

Fact adjectives give information about: size, age, colour, nationality, material.

If you use an opinion adjective and a fact adjective in the same sentence to describe something or someone, the adjective order is: OPINION ADJECTIVE FACT ADJECTIVE NOUN

Commas are usually written between adjectives, but not between the last adjective and the noun, although there are some exceptions to this rule.

Example 1: He's a talented, French designer.

Example 2: That's a lovely, big dog you've got!

Example 3: What an ugly, polyester dress!

Tomorrow we will look at some sub-categories of fact adjectives.

If you have any questions about adjective order so far, please post your questions on one of our social media sites (Facebook or Bluesky) and we will answer as soon as we can. You many also want to post your own original sentence with two adjectives: one opinion adjective and one fact adjective.

Enjoy the rest of your day!