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What are
adjectives?
- Adjectives
are words used to describe nouns, such as people, places, animals
or things.
- E.g.
a nice person, a quiet place, a dangerous
animal, a new thing
- Some adjectives
are used to show which one or how many.
- E.g.
that person, every place, our animal,
one thing
- Adjectives
are also used after the following verbs: to be; to feel; to seem;
to appear; to get; to look; to taste; to sound; to smell.
- E.g.
My husband is happy. I feel sad. She seems familiar.
My brother appears well. We are getting old.
He looks handsome. Her voice sounds sexy. This
tastes sweet. That smells sour.
What are
adverbs?
- Adverbs
describe verbs (He speaks slowly), adjectives (He is an
incredibly slow speaker) and other adverbs (He speaks awfully
slowly). They usually tell where, when or how.
- Many adverbs
end in -ly, but not all. E.g. well, very, fast,
never, hard, in a friendly way, etc.
- A little
tip - when you place an adverb in a sentence it is best to put
it as close to the word it is describing as possible. Otherwise
it could get confusing.
Comparisons:
Many adjectives
and adverbs can be relative. What does this mean? Think about the
adjective "nice", for example. You can be nice or not
nice, but you can also be nice in degrees. To show these degrees,
or this kind of comparison, we have three forms:
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form:
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positive
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comparative
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superlative
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Use:
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To describe
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To compare
one thing to another
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To compare
more than two things.
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Form
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This
is the regular adjective or adverb form.
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Form
the comparative by adding -er to the adjective or using the
word more.
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Form
the superlative by adding -est to the adjective or using the
word most. (We usually put the word the before a superlative
form, e.g. "the nicest.)
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Examples:
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nice
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nicer
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nicest
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soon
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sooner
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soonest
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beautiful
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more
beautiful
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most
beautiful
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quickly
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more
quickly
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most
quickly
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| Exceptions:
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good
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better
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best
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well
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better
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best
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bad
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worse
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worst
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many
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more
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most
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much
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more
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most
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little
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less
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least
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Full
sentences:
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She is
a nice lady.
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She is
nicer than he is.
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She is
the nicest person I know.
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He will
arrive soon.
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He will
arrive sooner than she will.
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Which
guest will arrive the soonest?
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There are some
adjectives which are absolute. This means that the noun either is
this way or is not. A good example is the adjective dead. Someone
is either dead or not dead. You can not be deader than another person.
There are no comparative or superlative forms for such adjectives.
Some
other absolute adjectives are: perfect, complete, final, full, meaningless,
empty, excellent, unique, entire, etc.
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