Adjectives
English adjectives never change. No gender, no number, no case: a tall man, a tall woman, three tall buildings. Two things do the work instead: position (before the noun) and, for comparison, a choice between -er/-est and more/most.
No agreement — ever
| they say | English |
|---|---|
| des voitures rouges / coches rojas | red cars |
| eine kleine Stadt | a small town |
| case-marked German endings (-er, -es, -en…) | nothing, always |
If you catch yourself pluralising an adjective (✗ differents countries), stop: adjectives are frozen.
Position: before the noun
- a beautiful old house — never after (✗ a house beautiful).
- After linking verbs they stand alone: The house is beautiful. It seems strange. She looks tired.
- Romance speakers: your default noun-then-adjective order flips — une voiture rouge → a red car.
- Only leftovers follow the noun: something strange, the people involved, the president elect.
Stacking order: opinion first, origin/material last
Native speakers order multiple adjectives instinctively; the sequence is roughly:
| opinion | size | age | shape | colour | origin | material | noun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lovely | little | old | round | green | French | wooden | table |
- a beautiful big old house (✗ an old big beautiful house)
- a small black leather bag
Two or three stacked adjectives is the natural maximum; no commas needed in this ordered stack.
Comparison: -er/-est or more/most
| adjective length | comparative | superlative |
|---|---|---|
| one syllable | older, bigger (double the consonant), nicer | the oldest, the biggest |
| two syllables ending in -y | happier, easier | the happiest |
| longer adjectives | more expensive, more interesting | the most expensive |
- Than, not "that/as": older than me (French que, Spanish que both tempt you toward ✗ older that).
- Never both: ✗ more bigger, more easier.
- Equality: as … as — She's as tall as her brother. Negative: not as tall as.
| irregular | comparative | superlative |
|---|---|---|
| good | better | the best |
| bad | worse | the worst |
| far | further/farther | the furthest/farthest |
| little (amount) | less | the least |
| much/many | more | the most |
-ed vs -ing: the boring/bored trap
Participial adjective pairs point in opposite directions — -ing = causes the feeling, -ed = has the feeling:
| the thing is… | the person is… |
|---|---|
| boring | bored |
| interesting | interested |
| tiring | tired |
| confusing | confused |
| exciting | excited |
I am boring means you put others to sleep. You probably mean I am bored.
Adjective vs adverb
Adjectives describe nouns; most manner adverbs add -ly: a slow train → it moves slowly. After sense/linking verbs use the adjective: It tastes good. She looks happy. German speakers, whose adjectives double as adverbs (sie singt schön), must add the -ly: she sings beautifully (✗ she sings beautiful). Watch the impostors: hard/hardly (works hard ≠ hardly works), late/lately, and fast and well (she plays well, not ✗ plays good — common in casual American speech, still an error to copy).
Same chapter in: French · Spanish · German · Italian · Georgian · Mandarin Chinese · Cantonese · Malay