Challenges with using Adjectives(Background)

In the English language, the adjective is the part of speech that modifies or describes a noun (usually the subject) in the sentence. While adjective placement and form is somewhat standard in a variety of sentences, sometimes speakers and writers of the English language can run into trouble if the adjective requires an irregular or less common form to keep the sentence grammatically correct.

Attributive and Predicative Adjectives

• One problem that some encounter is determining where to place an adjective in a sentence. If the adjective comes before the noun, it is an "attributive" adjective -- for example, "The young child" or "The green car." Adjectives that come after the noun are called "predicative" adjectives -- for example, "The child is young" and "The car is green." While the former is fairly easy to remember in English (adjective + noun), the latter is a bit more confusing because it generally requires a verb or verb phrase before the adjective ("The man is tired") but does not always require a verb ("Surgeon General" or "times past"). Additionally, the entire meaning of a sentence or idea can change depending on whether or not the adjective is used in an attributive way or a predicative way. For example, "The poor man" indicates that we feel sorry for the man in question, whereas "The man is poor" suggests the man has little money to spend.

Qualitative and Classifying Adjectives

• Some may struggle with "qualitative" and "classifying" adjectives and how to use each correctly in a sentence. While qualitative adjectives provide information on quality ("the smart cat"), classifying adjectives put a noun or object into a specific group ( "the pregnant woman"). While this in itself is not hard to understand, what can be problematic is understanding that you can grade a qualitative adjective ("the extremely smart cat") while you cannot grade a classifying adjective. We rarely say "the highly pregnant woman" or "the really Western movie."

  Multiple Adjectives

  • Determining the order of words when more than one adjective describes a noun can be difficult. For example, if "long," "beautiful" and "silk" describe a scarf, should we say "the long, beautiful, silk scarf" or "the beautiful, silk, long scarf"? The order is something native English speakers usually learn without realizing what it is. In very general terms, an observed characteristic would come before a physical characteristic, which would precede a material. So "the beautiful, long silk scarf" sounds right to an English speaker's ears.

  Comparative Adjectives

  • Some adjectives can be "comparative" in that they suggest one thing is better, bigger, or somehow more improved upon than the other. Usually these adjectives end with -"er". (For example: the "richer" man has more money than the "rich" man, and the "fatter" cat has more girth than the "fat" cat). What is problematic for some speakers of English is learning that some adjectives require a modifier rather than "-er" ending to be comparative. Examples include the "more beautiful flower," or "the less wealthy man" or "the better choice." It would not be grammatically correct to say the "beautifuler" flower or the "betterer" choice.

  Superlative Adjectives

  • Adjectives can also be "superlative" in that they indicate a noun or object is the "best" or "greatest" (by comparison) to all other choices. For example, we might say that this flower is "the most beautiful" or this woman is "the loveliest" person in the room. And while many superlative adjectives end in "-est," there are also a wealth of irregular superlative adjectives that can create confusion because they do not: "the worst book" does not end in "-est" and requires route memorization to remember correctly. We would never say, for example, "the worstest book is on the shelf."

  
  

Importance of Adjectives in Sentences (Discussion Part)

          In every language, adjectives are important elements of sentences. Using adjectives means that we can express the quality of any person or object. Without adjectives we could not say how any object looks like. Not only pronouns and adjectives are the words which are used for description of something or somebody. In addition; when we read a paper which is a descriptive one, adjectives help us to picture the content of what we read about. If I give an example for it which can you picture better??

1)  "She went to a friend's house."

2) "She happily along the brightly colored paved side walk while on her way to her friend's beautiful house."

Big difference, right ? :)

Adjectives are important because they...

---  describe a noun (person, place, or thing)

---  tell more about a noun (person, place, or thing)

---  make sentences more interesting

---  affect the meaning of  sentences

             Whenever we use adjectives, they make our writings more visual and vivid. Our readers will get a better idea of what we wish them to picture when they read our writings. It appeals to our readers’ senses; therefore, they can hear, see, touch, taste, and even smell what you’re describing. Also, use of adjectives makes our reading and writing much more fun. It sets the tone for our writing. You need to use them for descriptive papers or in our daily life. Moreover; we use adjectives because we want to express ourselves, things, characters in a good or bad way. It will get our readers' or listeners' attention and can make the book a good read or speech a good, an effective speech. Adjectives can make other people want to get the book or you are wanted to be listened over and over and see how well you wrote and talked with somebody and adjectives is a big help to succeed . They might even be looking for adjectives that come near. Whenever I think about my speeches,  writings or readings without using adjectives, I do not want to listen, write and read. Therefore, except for an academic writing I usually be careful about that issue in my speeches, or writings.          

              Briefly,  "One word is worth a thousand pieces of gold". That's like I cannot imagine a cake without any ornation on it. Then, how was  the cake? I say! :) Yes, this quatation which I wrote at the beginning of this paragraph  is definetely ever and ever true. So, I recommend you to do not give up and keep up using adjectives in your own sentences. By this way, we make up more and more attractive combinations! :) 
         For example,as we are prospective teachers we have teach "Adjectives" to the students. As you know that there are many different ways to teach adjectives. The video below shows a method that teaches adjectives to young learners. Please watch the video below and then answer the questions. 

                 And now, since you watched the video please share your anwers to the folowing questions:

1) Do you think that the video above is an effective method to learners?
2) What do you think, what is the best way to teach adjectives?
3) In Russian literature (writer's such as Tolstoy, Chehov, Dostoyevsky) use pages of adjectives to describe the characters. Why do you think they do that?




                This is an another video to teach adjectives for students. Which video do you think is more effective in teaching adjectives? If you were a teacher which one would you use and why?