--- title: Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An adjective describes a noun (a scary dog, a red ball); an adverb tells you more about a verb: how, when, where or --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Adjectives and adverbs: describing thi… # Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions Lesson 4 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/0/) — An adjective describes a noun (a scary dog, a red ball); an adverb tells you more about a verb: how, when, where or how often (she sang loudly, come soon). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/1/) — Piling up describing words doesn't make writing stronger: "the big, enormous, gigantic dog" says "big" three times; two sharp adjectives that each add something new are better. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/2/) — English speakers put adjectives in a set order without ever being taught it: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, where from, material, purpose; that is why "a big red ball" sounds right and "a red big ball" sounds weird. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/3/) — Many adverbs end in -ly, but not all (fast, soon, often), and some -ly words are adjectives (a friendly dog, a lonely cat); check what the word describes. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/4/) — Some describing words are old and irregular: good, better, best and bad, worse, worst; and places invent their own, like "bostin'" (brilliant) in the Black Country or "wicked" (very) in Boston. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/5/) — An adjective is a word that describes a noun; a synonym is a word with nearly the same meaning, like big and enormous. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/6/) — Adjectives usually go in this order: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose, as in "a lovely little old round red French wooden toy box". - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/7/) — An adverb tells you more about a verb, an adjective or another adverb, answering how, when, where or how often. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/8/) — Many adverbs end in -ly, but fast, soon and often are adverbs too. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/9/) — Friendly, lovely, silly and lonely end in -ly but are adjectives, because they describe nouns. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/10/) — In standard English good is an adjective (a good game) and well is the adverb (you played well); "played good" is common in casual speech, especially in America. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/11/) — Well can also be an adjective meaning healthy, as in "I feel well". - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/12/) — The comparative compares two (bigger, more beautiful); the superlative names the top one (biggest, most beautiful); long adjectives use more and most. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/13/) — Good, better, best and bad, worse, worst are irregular comparisons. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/14/) — "Most bestest" doubles the top form; it is fine for fun, but school writing says "the best". - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/15/) — Wicked means very in New England in the US (wicked good), brilliant in British slang, and evil in its old standard meaning. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/16/) — In UK slang mint means excellent; in London bare means very or lots of; in the Black Country and Birmingham bostin' means brilliant. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/4-adjectives-and-adverbs/17/) — Literally first meant exactly, really happening; for hundreds of years writers, Charles Dickens among them, have also used it just to make things stronger, and some dictionaries list both meanings. - ← previous: [Verbs: doing words and being words](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/3-verbs-doing-words-and-being-words/) - next →: [Pronouns: I, me, you, they and who](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/5-pronouns-i-me-you-they-and-who/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)