Lesson 9: Describing things

How do you say what something is like? You use an adjective. An adjective is a word that tells more about a noun. “Big”, “red” and “cold” are adjectives.

Where adjectives go

Put the adjective before the noun: “a big dog”. Or put it after “be”: “The dog is big.”

An adjective never changes. We say “two big dogs”, not “two bigs dogs”.

Comparing

Think of a race. One runner is fast. Another runner is faster. One runner is the fastest.

For short adjectives, add -er to compare two things. Add -est to compare more than two. Use “than” with -er: “Tom is taller than Ben.” “Tom is the tallest in the class.”

Watch the spelling. “Big, bigger, biggest” doubles the last letter. “Happy, happier, happiest” changes y to i.

For long adjectives, use “more” and “the most”: “This film is more interesting than that one.” “It is the most interesting film.”

Two are irregular: “good, better, the best” and “bad, worse, the worst”.

To say two things are equal, use “as … as”: “She is as tall as me.”

Adverbs

An adverb tells more about a verb. Many adverbs end in -ly: “slow, slowly” and “quick, quickly”.

Be careful with “good”. It is an adjective: “He is a good singer.” The adverb is “well”: “He sings well.”

Some adverbs do not change. “Fast” stays “fast”: “She runs fast.”

Try it

Write the right form:

1. This bag is ___ (cheap) than that bag.
2. She is the ___ (tall) girl in the class.
3. He plays ___ (good).

The answers are: cheaper, tallest, well.

Next time, we will learn can, must and should.