Grammar: B1 - ✨ Grammar Essentials: 🧩 Parts of Speech & 🏗️ Sentence Structure - Lesson 6: Order of Multiple Adjectives before a noun

✨ Lesson 6: Order of Multiple Adjectives before a Noun

We know that adjectives describe nouns. But what happens when we want to use two, three, or even more adjectives together? In English, there is a preferred order¹ for them.

Following this order will make your writing and speaking sound much more natural. While native speakers follow this order without thinking, we can learn it with a simple guide.

The Royal Order of Adjectives

This is the general order that most adjectives follow. Don't worry, you will almost never use all of them at once! Using two or three is most common.

1. Opinion: beautiful, delicious, interesting, ugly, lovely
2. Size: big, small, long, tall, short
3. Age: old, ancient, new, young
4. Shape: round, square, flat
5. Color: red, blue, green, black
6. Origin²: Khmer, French, American, Chinese
7. Material³: silk, stone, wooden, plastic
8. Purpose: sleeping (bag), cooking (pot)

Examples in Action

• a beautiful old temple (Opinion → Age → Noun)
• a friendly young French tourist (Opinion → Age → Origin → Noun)
• a small round stone table (Size → Shape → Material → Noun)
• some delicious Khmer food (Opinion → Origin → Noun)

Punctuation with Adjectives
When you use more than one adjective, we usually separate them with a comma ( , ). However, we do not put a comma between the final adjective and the noun.

• It was a long, hot, tiring day.

🧠 Practice Quiz: Put them in Order!

Put the adjectives in the correct order to describe the noun.

1. a (stone / ancient / huge) statue
   → a huge, ancient, stone statue
2. an (American / interesting / young) visitor
   → an interesting, young, American visitor
3. a (silk / beautiful / blue) scarf
   → a beautiful, blue, silk scarf
4. a (small / wooden / old) box
   → a small, old, wooden box

📝 Homework: Describe an Object

Find an object in your room or think of something you saw today in Siem Reap. Describe it using at least two or three adjectives in the correct order.

Example: I bought a beautiful, small, silver statue at the market.

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Vocabulary Glossary

1. Order: (Noun) - លំដាប់ (lum'dap) - The arrangement of things in relation to each other. ↩
2. Origin: (Noun) - ប្រភព (prâphôp) - The place where something comes from. ↩
3. Material: (Noun) - សម្ភារៈ (sâmphéarĕə') - The matter from which a thing is made (e.g., wood, plastic, stone). ↩