Hi everybody and welcome back to EEP. Today we want to talk about adjectives.
Specifically we want to look at what happens when you have more than one
adjective in a sentence. So in English you can put as many adjectives as you
like in sentences, but you have to put them in a specific order. The funny thing
about this is that most native English speakers have no idea that this is the case.
They just do it automatically, right? So a native English speaker wouldn't be
able to tell you the order, but they could tell you that the phrase
"patterned cotton scarf" sounds right while the phrase "cotton patterned scarf"
does not sound right. So we're going to teach you the order so that
you know how to make it sound correct to a native speaker.
Now, we wish there was a really easy way to remember this. We tried.
So the best we can come up with is OAA COMP. Yup.
So if you can remember OAA COMP, that will help you
with the order of adjectives. But we'll explain what each one means.
So our order starts with O,
and O is opinion. Opinion, that's right, so what the viewer thinks about the thing.
So give me some examples of adjectives that describe your opinion.
So opinion could be beautiful, amazing, horrible...words like this. Yep.
O - A. The A stands for appearance. So appearance could include things like
size, shape...words like this. You have some examples, Larissa? Yes I do.
Large, square, octagonal [laughter] I like it.
O-A-A. The second A talks about age - how old something is..or young.
So I could say old, or this is ancient or brand-new [mumbling] ..words like that.
O-A-A- COMP. So the COMP starts with a C. C stands for colour.
Colour could be
a color: red or blue, or a color-kind-of-word, like transparent.
Next we have O and O stands for origin and you can think of
origin kind of like nationality, although there are other words also,
but we can think of it that way.
So some examples might be Canadian or Kenyan or American... words like this.
Next: O-A-A-COMP. So we've done C-O, next is M. M is material, so what it's made out of.
Examples: cotton, metal, plastic.
O-A-A-COMP. The last letter is P.
P stands for purpose. Purpose describes what that object..that noun.. is used for.
For example, this is a small steel SNACK container.
There's some grapes in there we're munching on between takes.
Also something like a SLEEPING bag or an IRONING board: an adjective that
describes what that noun is used for.
Okay, so there you have it. O-A-A-COMP. Yeah, just remember that if you can.
Ok, we're going to play a little game like always.
Larissa is going to start. She's going to take the first of our group, so O, which is opinion
I almost forgot! So opinion. And she was going to think of
as many adjectives describing opinion as she can in 10 seconds.
(which we don't have a time for)
Are you ready? I'm ready.
Opinion. Here we go. Go. Beautiful, terrible, wonderful, awful, awesome, fantastic,
fabulous, stupendous, amazing inventive surprising. Done. That was very good.
That was surprising. Plus, I like they were all very positive.
I think I said terrible. Good, throw in one.
All right, Misha. O-A..A..Appearance. Ooh, she's lucky because appearance
can be anything that it looks like. Ready? Yeah. Go.
Big, small, square, round, broken, long, deep.
Time. I'm not as good at this game as Larissa. Opinion is a good one. No, that was a good one.
You're right. You're just better. You ocan take it. We'll see. We'll see how I do at the next: age.
Oh, age. That is a rough one. Ok, are you ready? I think so. Good luck.
All right. Old, new, young, ancient, antique? (I think so) ..age.. 15-year-old
Sorry but I got distracted and I let you go a few seconds longer.
O-A-A-COMP. You're at C: colour. Colour! Ready? Oh, yeah!
Blue, pink, purple, green, yellow,
white, black, brown, translucent, clear, opaque. Oooo. Stop.
Just when it was getting good. I know!
Okay, O-A-A-COMP. You did colour, now origin
Origin. Ready? Yup. Asian, African, Chinese, Indian, Western, Mexican, Time's up.
That was good. Chhhh.... Guess what I was trying to say!
We're getting close to the end. Yeah. Next is M stands for material. You ready? Yeah, ready.
This is a good one for you. I like this one. Alright, go.
Cotton, silk, wood, steel, metal, plastic,
sponge, hemp, linen. Good, stop. Great.
The last one should be purpose. It should be mine.
But purpose is a very specific adjective..specific to the noun. So I don't
want to lose really badly. We're going to skip that one. We'll give her a break.Thanks.
All right, one last activity. Let's talk about elephants. Elephants! Elephants and adjectives.
So we've got two fabulous elephants here, and we're going to describe them.
Let's think of how many adjectives we can think of for each. That's right, we'll brainstorm.
Then we'll put them in the right order. Perfect. All right. Number one.
It is multicolored. I got it in Laos, so it's Lao. It's soft and it's ..um..
it's a toy. It's unique. It's handmade, maybe. It's handmade, absolutely.
Multicolored refers to color, Lao is origin, soft is appearance, toy is the purpose,
unique is our opinion, and handmade is also describing appearance.
So the sentence would look like this:
Next one. This elephant is metal. He's gold. It's... He's? Maybe.
It's Turkish. It's small. It's very small. It's ornate. It's interesting. Yeah.
Okay, metal is a material. Gold is colour. Turkish is its origin.
Small and ornate are both appearance, and interesting is opinion.
So the final sentence will look like this:
Here is some practice. Put the adjectives in the right order to make the correct phrase.
All right, so remember O-A-A-COMP when you're making sentences with multiple adjectives,
and thanks for checking out our amazing, new-ish, Canadian, online, English learning videos.
We made this video by request - a request
from one of our amazing, international viewers --nice order of adjectives! Thank-you.
We'd love to make more videos that way.
So if you have ideas - things you want a little more practice with, or you want to
learn about, then put your idea in the comments and we'll make a video just for you.
O-A-A-COMP. I have to go back to it every time. I knowm, we have to remember it that way, too.