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Unit 1 Adjectives & Adverbs

1.1 We use an adjective to describe a noun.

e.g. Mr. Lee is a nice teacher.

Many adjectives are put:

 before the nouns they describe
e.g. The new car has been sold.
 after the verb be
e.g. This car is new, isn’t it?
 after other verbs such as:
seem appear look get become Keep
taste smell sound feel remain make

e.g. This car looks new. When did you buy it?
e.g. Wear this jacket. It’ll keep you warm.

 Some adjectives such as: afraid, alike, alive, alone, ashamed, asleep, awake,
etc. are rarely used before the noun they describe.
The child was afraid.
 Wrong: The afraid child kept crying.

 Adjectives such as: content, fine, glad, ill, sorry, (un)sure, upset, (un)well,
etc. that describe health and feelings don’t come before nouns.
My brother felt unwell.
 Wrong: My unwell brother didn’t go to school yesterday.

A. Choose the correct words to complete the following sentences.

1. She felt alone / lonely for all of her children had left home.

2. She closed the door quietly so as not to wake the asleep /sleeping baby.

3. I felt sad / sadden when I heard that many were killed in the accident.

4. ‘Be kind / kindly to your classmate,’ said Miss Lau.

5. The girl’s parents were glad / gladly when their daughter returned home.

6. This soup tastes good / well. Who made it?

7. I don’t feel good / well. I think I’ll go to bed early.

8. The frightened / afraid child kept crying.

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1.2 Sometimes we use two or more adjectives together. Usually we put adjectives in this order:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
opinion  how big?  how old?  what  where  What is it
colour? from? made of ?

e.g. a handsome young man (1  3) a modern Japanese song (3  5)

a small plastic bag (2  6) an old white cotton shirt (3 4  6)

Adjectives of size and length (big/small/tall/short/long etc) usually go before adjectives of

shape and width (round/fat/thin/slim/wide etc)

e.g. a large round table a tall thin girl a long narrow street

B. Put the adjectives in brackets in the correct position.

1. a beautiful table (wooden / round) a beautiful round wooden table

2. a red car (old / big) _________________________

3. a metal box (black / small) _________________________

4. long hair (black / beautiful) _________________________

5. an old painting (interesting / French) _________________________

6. a vegetable soup (hot / delicious) _________________________

1.3 We use an adverb to describe:

a verb She cried loudly last night.

an adjective There was a very serious car accident last night.

an adverb It rained very heavily last night.

 Some adverbs are formed from an adjective + -ly.

e.g. Mr Lee speaks fluent English. (fluent: adjective)
e.g. Mr Lee speaks English fluently. (fluently: adverb)

 Hourly, daily, weekly, yearly, fast, hard etc. are both adjectives and adverbs.
e.g. This is a weekly magazine. It comes out weekly.

adjective adverb
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  Some adverbs have the same form as adjectives.
We arrived in the early morning. (early: adjective)
We arrived early in the morning. (early: adverb)

These include:
cheap clean deep direct fair fast
free hard high late long loud
low new quick straight tight etc.

 Remember that good is an adjective and well is an adverb.

She’s a good singer. She sings well, doesn’t she?
But well is also an adjective meaning in good health.
I had a cold last week, but I’m well now.

 Enough is an adverb. It comes after adjectives and other adverbs.

e.g. I think your sister is old enough to go to school by herself.
e.g. She didn’t do her homework carefully enough.

C. Complete the following sentences by inserting the words in the brackets.

daily
e.g. We usually go to the supermarket for our ^ groceries. (daily)

1. The weather is warm, we can go swimming. (enough)

2. Charlie is an outstanding student. I think he’ll have great achievements in the future. (near)

3. The ice-cream is delivered to this café at 8am. It’s very fresh. (daily)

4. There was a traffic jam. It took me two hours to get to Causeway Bay from Tsim Sha Tsui.
(nearly)

5. She didn’t do her homework carefully. (enough)

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D. Complete the following story using the words below. You do not have to use all of them. The first
one has been done for you.

high highly upper really glad furiously

terribly quickly distant noisy careful carefully
small different well rock noisily happily

A young man, who earned his living as a drummer in a (1) (1) rock
band, had just got married. He and his wife were looking for
somewhere to live. After looking at many (2) places, they at (2)
last found a block of flats which both of them (3) liked. (3)
However, there was still the problem of whether they should (4)
take one of the ground floor flats, which had a (4) garden, (5)
or one of the (5) floor flats, which had a good view of the (6) (6)
hills. After (7) consideration, they decided on a first-floor flat (7)
– not too low and not too (8) – and they moved in. (8)

They gave a house-warming party that night. It was a fun and

(9) party, as most of the host’s friends from the band came and (9)
played their musical instruments. The party was in full swing
when the telephone rang suddenly. The hostess went (10) to (10)
answer it in the hall. A moment later, she came back with a big
smile on her face and said to her husband, ‘That was the man
who has just moved into the flat downstairs telephoning, dear. (11)
I’m so (11) we decided not to choose his flat. He says it’s (12) (12)
noisy down there.’