Prefixes, numbers, word order and participles

Image   Maria drives a big, blue car. She enjoys her 20-minute journey to work.
 

We can make adjectives with numbers and nouns. For example:

 

It's a 4-hour flight.

We need a three-week training course.

They live in a two-bedroom apartment.

He's writing a 20-page report.

He's giving a 15-minute presentation.

 

 

Note that

 

1.     We can write the number as a word or a number:

 

a 3-storey building

a three-storey building

 

2.     These adjectives never have a plural form:

 

This apartment has two bedrooms.  Image

It's a two-bedrooms apartment.  Image

It's a two-bedroom apartment.   Image


When we use more than one adjective, we need to place them in the correct order. This is the most usual order:

 

1. Opinion

2. Size

3. Colour

4. Nationality

5. Material

 

nice

lovely

beautiful

horrible

delicious

 

 

big

small

long

short

tall

 

red

blue

yellow

brown

blonde

 

French

English

Spanish

Italian

German

 

wooden

metal

plastic

cotton

glass

 

 

For example:

 

She wore a lovely long, blue dress.

I have some beautiful yellow chairs.

She has short, dark hair.

It was a horrible plastic table.

We had a delicious Spanish wine.

I bought a wonderful big, brown, Italian leather handbag.


 

We use the present and past participles of some regular verbs as adjectives.

 

'ing'

describes a quality or cause

It was a frightening experience.

'ed'

describes an effect or feeling

I was frightened.

 

 

We can describe a person as 'boring', 'annoying', 'exciting' etc. but we rarely use the 'ing' form with 'I' so:

 

I'm exciting about that. Image

I'm excited about that. Image

He's exciting to be with.   Image   [I'm never bored when I'm with him.']

           

 

The exercise confused us.

The exercise was confusing so...

...we were confused.

Edward interests me.

He's an interesting man.

I'm interested in him.

This book bores me.

It's a boring book.

I'm bored with this book.

 

 Here are some more examples:

 

'ing' adjective

'ed' adjective

tiring

tired

exciting

excited

frightening

frightened

surprising

surprised

worrying

worried

annoying

annoyed

embarrassing

embarrassed

fascinating

fascinated

 

 

Note that

 

1.     We rarely place this kind of 'ed' adjective directly before a noun.

 

I spoke to an annoyed man. Image

I spoke to a man who was annoyed. Image

 

2.     There are some 'ing' adjectives that do not have this kind of meaning. They are gerunds which we use as adjectives to specify different kinds of things. For example:

 

He had to show the policeman his driving licence.

I'm starting a new training course.


To make some adjectives negative, we use prefixes.  Almost all these adjectives have only one possible prefix - 'un', 'in' and 'dis' are not interchangeable. Although, there are some adjectives which use 'un' and 'dis' e.g. 'unsatisfied' and 'dissatisfied'; 'unorganised' and 'disorganised', these words have subtly different meanings. If you are not sure, check in a good dictionary.

 

It's always a good idea to learn the negative form when you learn a new adjective. Here are some examples:

 

 

Prefix

Used with

Examples

 

un

 

some adjectives beginning with a vowel or a consonant

 

 

unreasonable, unhappy, unpopular, unavailable, unusual, unable

 

in

 

some adjectives beginning with a vowel (except i and u) or a consonant

 

 

inactive, indecent, indecisive, incomplete

 

ir

 

some adjectives beginning with 'r'

 

irregular, irresponsible, irrational, irresistible

 

 

il

 

some adjectives beginning with 'l'

 

illegal, illiterate, illegitimate, illegible, illogical

 

 

im

 

some adjectives beginning with 'm' or 'p'

 

 

immature, immoderate, impossible, impatient, immoral, immobile, imperfect

 

dis

 

some adjectives beginning with a vowel or a consonant

 

 

disloyal, dishonest, dissatisfied, disobedient

 

 

Note that we don't use negative prefixes with all adjectives. Sometimes we need a different word.

For example:

 

big  small

soft hard

 

 

Be careful because some English adjectives have more than one meaning and different opposites. For example:

 

light [5g] heavy [2kg]

light        dark    [colours]