Adjectives as nouns
Adjectives as nouns
People from Spain enjoy eating out.
The Spanish enjoy eating out.
People from Netherlands tend to be good at languages.
The Dutch tend to be good at language.
Florence Nightingale looked after the people who weren’t well during the Crimean War.
Florence Nightingale looked after the sick during Crimean War.
The system of reading for people who can’t see is called Braille.
The system of reading for the blind is called Braille.
People from France think that their cuisine is the best in the world.
The French think that their cuisine is the best in the world.
Ambulances arrived to take the people who had been injured to hospital.
Ambulances arrived to take the injured to hospital.
People from Switzerland are usually very punctual.
The Swiss are usually very punctual.
The worst season for people without a home is winter.
The worst season for homeless people is winter.
There is a discount for people without a job.
There is a discount for the unemployed.
The monument was erected to honour the people who died in the Second World War.
The monument was erected to honour dead people in the Second World War.
There are special TV programmes for people who can’t hear, which use sign language.
There are special TV programmes for the deaf, which use sign language.
There are special TV programmes for deaf people, which use sign language.
a big empty car park
an attractive young man
dirty old shoes
a beautiful black velvet jacket
a tall teenage American girl
a long sandy beach
a magnificent 17th-century country house
a stylish Italian leather bag
huge dark eyes
a friendly old black dog
a striped cotton T-shirt
1
specific groups in society, such as the young, the old (or the elderly), the sick (people who are ill), the blind, the deaf, the homeless, the dead.
2
some nationalities that end in
ch
sh
ese
ss
such as
the French
the Spanish
the British
the Japanese
the Irish
the Swiss
etc
Most other nationality words are nouns and are used in the plural, e.g.
the Brazilians
the Poles
the Turks
the Hungarians
the Argentinians
etc
You can also use adjective + people to talk about a group of people, e.g.
poor people
homeless people
old people
French people
To talk about one person, use e.g. a Japanese woman, a rich man, etc.
NOT a Japanese, a rich.
We've got a lovely old cottage just outside Bath.
She has long fair hair.
I bought a beautiful Italian leather belt.
You can put more than one adjective before a noun (often two and occasionally three). These adjectives go in a particular order, e.g.
NOT an old lovely cottage.
Opinion adjectives, e.g. beautiful, nice, lovely, always go before descriptive adjectives, e.g. big, old, round.
If there is more than one descriptive adjective, they go in this order:
opinion
size
age
shape
colour
pattern
origin / place
material
noun