Grammar Explanation

Some of the most common adjectives include words that refer to:

• Colours (red, pink, golden)
• Emotions (happy, sad, angry)
• Size (big, small, short, tall)
• Weather (hot, cold, sunny, windy)
• Appearance (beautiful, ugly, fat, thin)

Adjectives are usually put in front of a noun they describe or after a linking verb. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

• My Mom drives a white car -> The adjective ‘white’ is in front of the noun ‘car’
• My Mom’s car is white -> The adjective ‘white’ comes after the linking verb ‘is’

• I have a handsome boyfriend -> The adjective ‘handsome’ is in front of the noun ‘boyfriend’
• My boyfriend is handsome -> The adjective ‘handsome’ comes after the linking verb ‘is’

Using a noun as an adjective

In many cases, another noun can be used as an adjective too. Take a look at what happens in these examples:

• I like chocolate cake -> Usually, the word chocolate functions as a noun because it is a thing. However, in this sentence, it is being used to provide more information about the cake (describing what kind of cake it is), and so it functions as an adjective.  
• My uncle loves playing video games -> The word video is also a noun but here it is being used to describe the kind of game my uncle loves playing. Without the word ‘video’, the exact meaning of the sentence would be less specific – we wouldn’t know anything about the specific type of games he likes playing.

Other nouns that are commonly used as adjectives include numbers and countries. First let’s look at how numbers function as adjectives:

• I saw dogs in the park -> This sentence makes sense, but it doesn’t offer much information. Did you see a lot of dogs, or just a few? It could be 5 or 50!
• I saw five dogs in the park -> This sentence is much clearer. Now I know that you saw five dogs. So in this case, the word five becomes an adjective and is used to provide more information.

Countries are a little different, as you have to slightly change the noun form of the word to create a new adjective form. We call this adjective form nationality:

• England -> English
• Spain -> Spanish
• Italy -> Italian

You can then use these nationalities as adjectives, most commonly with people and food:

• David met a lot of English people on holiday -> This describes the kind of people David met on holiday.
• Marie really likes Chinese food -> The adjective Chinese gives us more information about the kind of food Marie likes. Otherwise, the sentence would just say ‘Marie really likes food’, which doesn’t tell us very much!

It can be a little difficult to know how to change a country into a nationality in English and you’ll find this is also sometimes the case in other languages too.

However, most nationalities in English end in ‘ish’, ‘ese’, or ‘an’ and you’ll notice that in many foreign languages the endings used for adjectives of nationality will also follow some kind of pattern.