Adjectives: Describe things

Adjective position

Adjectives describe nouns. In English, they usually come before a noun: ‘a big house’. In Creole, some adjectives come before the noun, but most come after the noun.

There are a set group of adjectives that come before noun, just like English: in gran lamézon / a big house. Some of these adjectives are shown below. Remember this group of adjectives with the mnemonic: adjectives describing BANGS — beauty, age, newness, goodness, size — come before the noun.

bèl zozo beautiful bird
joli shanson pretty song
vyé boug old guy
nouvo char new car
vayan padna good buddy
bon tem good time
gran lamézon big house
ti piti little child

Apart from the BANGS adjectives, the other adjectives all come after the noun they describe.

shyin las tired dog
lamin gosh left hand
garçon gayar healthy boy
shawi kanay mischievous raccoon
moun Kréyòl Creole people

For how to form sentences like ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘My truck is red’, see Verbs.

Comparatives

If you want to compare something to something else, you need to use pli … ke to mean ‘more … than’. Sometimes you can also hear pli … pasé for ‘more … than’, and mwins … ke for ‘less than’. If you want to say something is equal to something else, you can say osi … ke for ‘as … as’.

Mo pli vyé ke twa. I’m older than you.
Tô shawi pli kanay ke mô-kin. Your raccoon is more mischievous than mine.
Mô fiy pli gran ke tô fiy. My daughter is taller than your daughter.

Bouki pli vit pasé Lapin. Bouki is faster than Lapin.
To mwins smat ke mwa. You’re less smart than me.
Non, mo osi smat ke twa! No, I’m as smart as you!