Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Instituto Universitario de Tecnología Superior de Oriente

Barcelona, Anzoátegui

Adjectives, present and past progressive

tenses

Tutor: Student:

Arnold, A Language Coach Paola Riina

ID.: V-24.470.099

Barcelona, Julie 2021

 Introduction

In every language, adjectives are important elements of sentences. Using

adjectives means that we can express the quality of any person or object. Adjectives are
words that give more information about a noun or pronoun and can go in different
positions in a sentence. When we use more than one adjective before a noun in English,
we often put the adjectives in a specific order. It can sound quite strange if the
adjectives are in a different order. However, there are two things to remember. First, it's
very rare to use more than three adjectives before a noun. Second, sometimes the order
can be changed, usually to emphasise something.

Most adjectives are gradable. This means we can have different levels of that
quality. That is when it can be given different degrees of “strength”. We say an
adjective is non-gradable when it can’t be graded, that is when it can’t be given different
degrees of “strength”. This usually happens when we have an adjective which already
has an extreme, absolute or classifying meaning.

Besides adjectives, we will discuss progressive tenses in the present and past
tenses. The progressive tense is a verb tense that indicates a continuing action or an
action in progress. The progressive tense is also used in the perfect progressive of past,
present, and future tenses. The progressive tense is formed with a “to be” verb
conjugation and the present participle of a verb (-ing ending).

Having a good vocabulary, speaking fluently, and even having the best
pronunciation, will not ensure that we’re going to have adequate knowledge of English.
The next topics taken in consideration, are one of the most important ones. To
understand and to communicate in a correct way, those topics would have been taken
with attention to improve our English skills, and build a great learning process.

EXPLANATORY CONCEPTS
 Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns:
enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns:
many, few, millions, eleven.

First of all, we need to be able to recognize the difference between those types of
adjectives. Gradable adjectives are those that can be modified by placing adverbs in
front of them, and the non-gradables are those adjectives that cannot be modified by
adverbs. They describe qualities and cannot be used with comparative and superlative
forms.

They also are represented by some variances as:

The gradables ones can:

● Be modified by placing adverbs in front of them

● Describes qualities that can be measured in degrees such as age and size.
● Be used with classification adverbs.
● Be converted into comparative and superlative forms.

Meanwhile, the non-gradable adjectives are the opposite.

SENTENCES

Gradable adjectives:

1. This trimester is extremely interesting.

2. The last film I watched with my friends was quite boring.
3. Last night a couple of people put the music louder in front of the house and my
neighbor was extremely angry.
4. I went downstairs to my friend’s house then the situation was getting quite
frightening when I started to hear strange sounds.
5. My brother smile at the mirror and then say somethin like “I’m a really hot
man”
6. My aunt was wearing a quite expensive new dress for the party.
7. These days I've been feeling very shy, I think it is because of the isolation.
8. My mom ends up very tired every day.
9. It is fairly cold in my bedroom and I like it.
10. This last sentence is utterly humble so I hope my professor loves it: I wish I
could have a high grade in this task, haha.
Non-gradable adjectives:

1. I can say this task is finished when I send it through the classroom.
2. It is absolutely unacceptable what is going on in Cuba right now.
3. I bought a cactus last year and… well, now it is completely dead.
4. People around the world deserve to be totally free, but we must be aware about
the differences between freedom and debauchery.
5. Few days ago my brother and I went to the beach and I made a sandcastle and it
was destroyed by a wave.
6. It’s absolutely necessary to wear the mask to protect ourselves from the virus.
7. The Disney’s film Cruela is fascinating.
8. My trip Puerto La Cruz was awful. First, I ran out of money, then the bus broke
down and I had to take another bus in Barcelona again.
9. After 3 hours of thinking, I am exhausted.
10. This last sentence should be awesome, but I am -as I said above- exhausted.

EXPLANATION OF WHY THERE MUST BE AN ORDER (O.D.A.S.C.O.M.) IN

THE PLACEMENT OF ADJECTIVES BEFORE THE NOUN

When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally
in a particular order. We learned this order from listening to other people speaking; and
those people got their rules from their elders, and so on. In other words, this is and has
been a historical fact of the language for many years. It would sound strange to a native
English speaker if we have the words in the wrong order. Therefore, if we want our
English to sound more fluent, it will be important to put the adjectives in the correct
order.

SENTENCES WITH AT LEAST THREE ADJECTIVES BEFORE THE

NOUN

1. Their pretty tiny new cat is waiting to be filled with love.

2. That’s a pretty old black guitar.
3. My brother makes an incredibly big rectangle pizza.
4. My friend is fixing a brown italian wood table.
5. I’m playing my awesome little new video game.
6. My aunt needs some fresh round purple onions.
 7. I would like to go back to the nice old Puerto La Cruz bar in Dadaven.
8. My friend’s grandmother is an old english teacher, that's why my friend speaks
fluently.
9. The new white graphene MacBook from Apple is stunning!
10. My delivery came on a precious big blue motorcycle.

BRIEFLY EXPLAIN WHAT EACH TENSE IS USED FOR

Present Perfect Progressive Tense: also known as Present Perfect Progressive,

expresses an action that started in the past but is still happening in the present.

Present Progressive Tense: also known as “present continuous”, is used for an

ongoing action in the present.

Past Progressive tense: also known as “past continuous”, is used for an

ongoing activity in the past.

SENTENCES FOR EACH VERBAL TENSE

● Present Perfect Progressive Tense:

1. They have been playing music for all this last decade.
2. I have been looking for a better job since the last three months.
3. My mother has been teaching since she was eighteen years old.
4. I have been working hard to achieve my goals.
5. My brother has been playing tennis since he was twelve.

● Present Progressive tense:

1. Fran is buying some burgers in Lecheria; they are quite cheap.

2. My bro is playing the new video game I bought.
3. I’m walking on Lido where we first met the beach.
4. I’m doing my third evaluation from English IV.
5. Sadly, but we are getting older.

● Past Progressive tense:

1. I was developing a new landing page for my customer. .
2. I was making bad decisions.
3. They were making bad decisions too, but now we know half of the truth.
4. I was living in Zaraza for the last four months.
5. My brothers were playing all night long till my mom turned off the lights.

CONCLUSIONS
 English vocabulary is so rich that always using the same words will eventually
make you sound a little lame. A way to avoid this is to use all sorts of adjectives, which
will make your vocabulary richer and will make us sound more natural and more
educated.

In english, 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 what an object looks like. Adjectives help us to picture the content of
what we read about.

Whenever we use adjectives, they make writings more visual and vivid. People
will get a better idea of what we wish them to picture when they read what we say. It
appeals to our readers’ senses; therefore, they can hear, see, touch, taste, and even smell
what we’re describing. Also, use of adjectives makes our reading and writing much
more objective, especially when we can grade our adjectives. It sets the tone for our
writing.

On the other hand, the progressive tenses are important because it helps to make
the sequence of events clear and specific. Some actions are not simple; therefore, it is
necessary to show the complexity of when and how the event occurred. There are three
types of progressive tenses: present progressive, past progressive and future progressive.

WEBGRAPHY
● British Council: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/intermediate-
to-upper-intermediate/adjectives-gradable-and-non-gradable

● Grammarly Inc.: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/adjective/

● EF Education First: https://www.ef.com/wwes/recursos-aprender-

ingles/gramatica-inglesa/present-continuous/