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Monday 25 November 2013

STRONG ADJECTIVES

They have the idea of "very" and are followed by a normal adjective

Examples

  • gorgeous = very beautiful
  • huge = very big
Base Adjectives Strong Adjectives
beautifulgorgeous
uglyawful
dirtyfilthy
goodsuperb, great, fantastic
badterrible
happy thrilled
angryfurious
hungrystarving
tiredexhausted
funnyhilarious
bighuge, enormous
smalltiny
fatobese
scaredterrified
coldfreezing
hotboiling

With strong adjectives, for intensifiers we normally use: absolutely - exceptionally - particularly - really - quite
The film was absolutely awful.
He was an exceptionally brilliant child.
The food smelled really disgusting

Very, absolutely and really are used differently according whether the adjective is a base or a strong one:
veryabsolutelyreally
Base adjectives
true
false
true
Strong adjectives
false
true
true
Examples:
  • He was very happy; he was absolutely thrilled.
  • He was really happy/thrilled.
Intensifiers with comparatives and superlatives:
We use these words and phrases as intensifiers with comparative adjectives: much - far - a lot - quite a lot - a great deal - a good deal - a good bit - a fair bit
  • He is much older than me.
  • New York is a lot bigger than Boston.
  • We use much and far as intensifiers with comparative adjectives in front of a noun:
  • France is a much bigger country than Britain.
  • He is a far better player than Ronaldo.
We use these words as intensifiers with superlatives: easily - by far - far
  • The blue whale is easily the biggest animal in the world.
  • This car was by far the most expensive.
To practise this grammar point, please go to tolearnenglish.com or english file. For all the other grammar points in this unit (quantifiers, articles, infinitive/gerund), please go the OUP website here.

5 comments:

A Plain Observer said...

Dulce,
Is this you too???

Dulce said...

Yes I am

D. teacher said...

Hi! Coming as an anonymous visitor to find out why those ones cannot find their way to comments...

Anonymous said...

... and apparently , no thing is wrong!

Anonymous said...

Choose

Name/URL or
Anonymous

NOT
Google Account!!!!!!!!!!!!