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Writing Connections: You, College, and Careers
Book I: Sentences and Paragraphs

Lee Brandon, Mt. San Antonio College
ESL Tips
Order of Adjectives

In English, adjectives appear before the nouns they modify in a particular order:

Article or other determiner (a, an, the, most, four)

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Evaluation or Judgment (horrible, special, attractive)
Size (big, tiny)
Shape (round, oblong, star-shaped)
Age (young, middle-aged)
Color (silver, blue)
Nationality (Polish, Mexican)
Religion (Catholic, Jewish)
Material (wood, steel, silk)

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Noun

For example:
The big, star-shaped, silver ornament topped the tree.

A young Polish girl sent me this card.

Four big round cookies are in the blue silk bag.
TIP: It is more effective to use no more than two or three adjectives when describing a noun.

For more information about adjectives, see Book I, Ch. 8, Book II, Ch. 16, and Book III, Ch. 14.



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