Adjectives: word order

Sometimes we use two or more adjectives together:

• My brother lives in a nice new house.

• In the kitchen there was a beautiful large round wooden table.

Adjectives like nice, beautiful etc. are opinion adjectives.

Adjectives like new, large, round etc. are fact adjectives.

Opinion adjectives usually go before fact adjectives.

Sometimes we use two or more fact adjectives. Normally we put fact adjectives in this order:

(1) how long? - (2) how old? - (3) what colour? - (4) where from? - (5) What is it made of?

ORDER:

opinion - fact (size - shape - age - colour - origin - material)

Examples:

a tall young man (1 - 2)

big blue eyes (1 - 3)

a small black plastic bag (1 - 3 - 5)

an old white cotton shirt (2 - 3 - 5)

an old Russian song (2 - 4)

In general, there is no difference between Englih and German lagnuage use with the order of adjectives.