Today on Study English we're looking at adjectives. How do you use them, how do you order them,

and how do you use them to compare and describe things?

First, let's listen to some descriptions about the world under the sea, in the Gulf of Carpentaria,

off the north coast of Australia. It's quite an amazing place.

We know more about the surface of the moon or the surface of Mars, than we do about the

sea floor. The sea floor remains the last unexplored frontier. This is because it's

covered by this impenetrable ocean layer that we can't see through. The only way we can

see the sea floor is using sonar.

The largest reef they mapped is about 10 or so kilometres across. It's an oval-shaped

feature, so it covers around 100 square kilometres. Because of the fact that they are submerged

in 30m or so of water, the reefs are very hard to see. No one had realised that the

Gulf contained reefs just like the Great Barrier Reef.

Being able to describe things properly is an important communication skill.

You need adjectives for descriptions.

They usually come before the nouns they are describing.

The red car.

But when you want to accurately describe something, you often need to use more than one adjective

in a row.

What if the car is big, red, and made of plastic?

We call it the big, red, plastic car.

Notice that the adjectives are usually separated by commas.

But why don't we call it the red, plastic, big car?

How do you know which order to put the adjectives in?

Well, for native speakers, it's just that it sounds right, but luckily, there are some

rules.

It's called the royal order of adjectives.

Let's have a look at it.

First we have the determiner. That's articles: a, an,

the, numbers, or the word that describes the amount of something.

It can also be the owner, the person or thing who the noun belongs to.

So determiners can be: a

the many

some or a name, like John's.

So we have a car, many cars, John's car. The second type of adjective is opinion or

observation. This tells you something about the quality of the noun:

useful, cheap, ugly, beautiful.

Then we have size, for example: enormous, tiny, huge

followed by age. It could be old, modern,

7-year-old. Then shape, perhaps oval, circular or flat.

A colour, like white, black or blue. Then we have adjectives that describe origin,

where the noun is from, for example Thai, Indonesian, Australian.

Followed by material, what the thing is made of, like copper,

plastic or wooden. Lastly, is the qualifier. This is something

that's an integral part of the noun. Examples might be a rocking chair,

a wedding ring, an electric oven. There are of course a few exceptions to these

rules, but it's important that you learn them, and practice them whenever you can.

Have a look at these words, and see if you can turn them into a phrase:

wooden square useful box

Lily's Well, box is the noun, but what comes first?

The determiner. Whose box is it? It's Lily's box.

So Lily's comes first. Then that's followed by the observation: the

box is useful. Then, the shape. It's square.

Then, finally the material. It's a wooden box.

So we have Lily's useful, square, wooden box. Good. Now let's listen to some strings of

adjectives from the clip. The sea floor remains the last unexplored

frontier. This is because it's covered by this impenetrable ocean layer that we can't

see through. The largest reef they mapped is about 10 or so kilometres across.

He calls the sea floor, the last unexplored frontier.

Let's look at that phrase. Frontier is the noun. The others are all describing

the noun. First, we have the determiners 'the' and 'last'

Last expresses a number, so it goes second. Then unexplored. That's an observation. It's

a quality of the frontier. OK. Now what about this impenetrable ocean

layer? Well, layer is the noun. All the other words

are adjectives. This is the determiner.

Impenetrable is an observation. It describes a quality of the ocean layer.

Ocean here is the qualifier. Almost part of the noun, it's not just a layer, it's an ocean

layer. OK, now you try one.

Look at these words. They form a phrase that he used:

largest, reef, the. Well, reef is the noun, so it comes last.

'The' is a determiner, so it comes first. Largest describes the size, so that comes

after the. So we have the largest reef.

OK. There's another way adjectives can be used as well.

They can stand alone. They describe nouns by following the verb, to be.

When used in this way, adjectives are complements. Listen to one here:

The Gulf of Carpentaria is very flat and featureless. The Gulf of Carpentaria is very flat and featureless.

In a phrase, this would be the very flat, featureless Gulf of Carpentaria.

But used as a complement, the phrase becomes a full sentence.

The Gulf of Carpentaria is very flat and featureless. We can take the phrase the big red car and

turn it into a sentence. The car is big, red and plastic.

Notice that the order of adjectives still stays the same.

Now, let's look at how you go about describing things. It's often necessary to focus on particular

features, such as shape, size, dimension, weight, colour or texture.

The more you have built up your vocabulary of adjectives, the better your ability to

describe things accurately. So you might write up adjective lists according

to groups. To describe shapes we can say:

circular, triangular, rectangular, spherical, but we just say square.

It's also possible to describe something by saying it's like something common.

So we can say something is egg-shaped, or kidney-shaped.

Listen: The largest reef they mapped is about 10 or

so kilometres across. It's an oval-shaped feature, so it covers around 100 square kilometres.

When you're writing, you should always aim to make your descriptions as accurate as you

can. But sometimes you can't be exact, and you

need just describe something approximately. The largest reef they mapped is about 10 or

so kilometres across. It's an oval-shaped feature, so it covers around 100 square kilometres.

Because of the fact that they are submerged in 30m or so of water, they reefs are very

hard to see. Dr Harris uses the words about, around, or

so with numbers. About 10 kilometres or so.

Around 100 square kilometres. 30 metres or so.

Notice that the phrase 'or so', always comes after the number, but the others all come

before. You might also hear people say around about.

In formal language, we'd probably say approximately. These are all signs that the amount is not

exact. And now, it's around about time for me to

go. I'll see you next time for more Study English.

Bye bye.