Adjective order | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

so grammarians if you're a native
English speaker
the phrase French old white house might
seem a little weird to you if you're not
a native English speaker it might not
and this is something that I didn't
really know about before I started
preparing to teach this course is that
there is a specific order that
adjectives go in in English this is
something that I think we just pick up
as English speakers but if you didn't
grow up speaking English it gets a
little gets a little tricky sometimes so
the question is in order to make this
seem right what order do you put these
adjectives in mis near about as I can
reckon it making this into the old white
French house because there is an order
and it goes like this
determiner opinion size age shape color
origin material purpose or for sure dosa
scomp dosa scomp okay that's actually
kind of a thing so a dosa is a South
Indian flatbread and scomp I'm gonna say
is a word for eating it's not a word
that's a made-up word but dosa scomp
it's like sounds like scarf to me or
Chomp
and both of those are verbs that can
denote eating as well as scarf being a
garment so dosa scomp I just want you to
imagine sitting down to a delicious
South Indian meal and scomp and on some
doses so dosa scomp determiner and
that's words like the or and opinion
this is you know when you're describing
something there are certain there are
certain descriptors
that are not that not everyone would
agree with you know so if you're looking
at a piece of black metal everyone will
be able to agree that it is black but if
you think it's cool-looking or ugly
looking you know anything that anyone
could conceivably disagree about that's
an opinion so cool for example that
would be an opinion size so the cool big
old square black an origin usually can
be you know where it's from
so let's say Texan and then okay so we
have material so let's say leather
because leather can be black and then
purpose this is sort of where we would
use what's called a participle or a
jaronda to determine what the thing is
for so we were talking about I don't
know a lawnmower that you ride around on
right that's that's called a riding
mower right and the last thing here is
the the thing itself so we're looking at
okay so this thing is the cool big old
square black text and leather riding
mower but frankly in most normal English
sentences you're probably never going to
use more than three adjectives to
describe a given thing like old white
French house now sometimes you might
find yourself using more than one
adjective that fits into the same
category you know so you might say the
exciting unparalleled green dragon and
you'll notice I put a comma there
because when you use um two adjectives
from the same category so two opinions
the exciting and unparalleled you want
to separate them with a comma but
generally if you're if you're just
scooting down the dosis Gump old white
French house you don't need to separate
these non coordinate adjectives from
each other and we'll get more into
commas in the punctuation section
but for now all you need to remember is
dosa scomp and if you've never had a
dosa I strongly urge you to look up
recipes online go to a South Indian
restaurant and make and eat this
delicious food and then you're just
going to stomp on some doses so
determine our opinion size age dosa
shape color origin material purpose and
then the thing that's the order that
adjectives go in in English why is this
I have no idea
you know sometimes language can be
really the word I tend to use is
arbitrary you can call it random if you
like this is just the the way that we've
arrived at this order is just basically
through random chance and convention and
what what seems to sound right and what
sounds right for English isn't always
what sounds right for other languages
for example the way we're using
adjectives here we're always putting
them to the left of whatever they modify
the exciting paralleled green dragon you
know that's all it's all to the left
it's all old white French house it's all
you know on this one side of it and
other languages don't do that
necessarily so when you're trying to
just throw a bunch of adjectives
together on the left side of a noun this
is the order just remember dosa scomp
and that's how adjectives order works in
English you can learn anything Dave it
out