The room was decorated with ___ balloons. red big big red Answer big red
Sometimes you need to use two or more adjectives to describe something or someone. Part of becoming fluent in English is knowing which order to use these adjectives in. Choose the most natural-sounding response:
1. He was wearing a ________ shirt. dirty old flannel flannel old dirty old dirty flannel
2. Pass me the ________ cups. plastic big blue big blue plastic big plastic blue
3. All the girls fell in love with the ________ teacher. handsome new American American new handsome new handsome American
4. I used to drive ________ car. a blue old German an old German blue an old blue German
5. He recently married a ________ woman. young beautiful Greek beautiful young Greek beautiful Greek young
6. This is a ________ movie. new Italian wonderful wonderful Italian new wonderful new Italian
7. She is a ________ supermodel. beautiful slim Brazilian Brazilian beautiful slim slim Brazilian beautiful
8. It's in the ________ container. large blue metal blue large metal blue metal large
9. He sat behind a ________ desk. big wooden brown big brown wooden wooden big brown
10. She gave him a ________ vase. small Egyptian black black Egyptian small small black Egyptian
Nouns Combinations
COMPOUND NOUNS
Words can be combined to form compound nouns. These are very common, and new combinations are invented almost daily. They normally have two parts. The first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is. The second part identifies the object or person in question. Compound nouns often have a meaning that is different, or more specific, than the two separate words.
First part: type or purpose
Second part: what or who
Compound noun
police
man
policeman
boy
friend
boyfriend
fish
tank
water tank
dining
table
dining-table
You have noticed that the compound noun can be written either as a single word, as a word with a hyphen, or as two words. There are no clear rules about this. A good rule of thumb is to write the most common compound nouns as one word, and the others as two words.
The elements in a compound noun are very diverse parts of speech.
Compound elements
Examples
noun + noun
bedroom water tank motorcycle printer cartridge
noun + verb
rainfall haircut train-spotting
noun + adverb
hanger-on passer-by
verb + noun
washing machine driving licence swimming pool
verb + adverb
lookout take-off drawback
adverb + noun
onlooker bystander
adjective + verb
dry-cleaning public speaking
adjective + noun
greenhouse software redhead
adverb + verb
output overthrow upturn input
PRONUNCIATION
Stress is important in pronunciation, as it distinguishes between a compound noun and an adjective with a noun. In compound nouns, the stress usually falls on the first syllable.
EXAMPLES
a 'greenhouse = place where we grow plants (compound noun)
a green 'house = house painted green (adjective and noun)
a 'bluebird = type of bird (compound noun)
a blue 'bird = any bird with blue feathers (adjective and noun)