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Grammar
Unit 4: Lesson 1
Introduction to adjectives and articlesIntroduction to adjectives
Adjectives are the words we use to modify nouns. David explains how, with the help of a bear.
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- Okay...so in the sentence "I am super awesome" the adjective would be super
?(32 votes)- There would be two adjectives: super and awesome.(30 votes)
- Is the d in Adjective silent?
For a couple of weeks no one is answering my questions in khan academy :((14 votes)- The "d" in "Adjective", if sounded at all, is touched very lightly.
In which curricula are your questions going unanswered? Certainly not here in Grammar!(14 votes)
- Adjectives describe nouns, so what if i say "The cat is under the table" under describing the place of the cat. Is 'under' the adjective in that sentence?(12 votes)
- 'Under' is what we call a preposition. It describes how one thing is in relation to another. The cat is under/ above/ behind the table. Adjectives are used to add specifics about the nouns. Examples ... The grey/ fat/ sleepy cat is under the brown/ wooden/ kitchen table. I hope that helps.(10 votes)
- correct me if i'm wrong but isn't an adjective something that describes something like paper was white white would be the adjective right ?(8 votes)
- No need to correct you, Fatbob. You've nailed it!(4 votes)
- What part of speech is the word not?(4 votes)
- "Not" is a negating word used to modify adjectives (not handsome) and verbs (not to be confused with Usnavi, who is very handsome). Therefore, it fits the criteria to be considered an adverb. "Not"'s counterpart, "No", is usually used as an adjective, but can sometimes also be used as an adverb.(8 votes)
- i dnt get how best modifies friend(4 votes)
- I'm not the best at describing but bear with me. best friend... is your friend the best? silly friend is your friend silly? Your silly friend slipped on a slippery banana peel. silly describes friend and slippery describes the banana peel hopefully this was helpful someway and not confusing😅(5 votes)
- In the sentence "She's smart and caring", would the adjective(s) be smart and caring?(4 votes)
- Yes, smart and caring would be adjectives as adjectives describe a person and smart and caring DESCRIBE the girl. Hope this helps.(5 votes)
- oliva is correct like in this sentense right here "I hope mom is not tired or asleep..."
the adjective would be asleep or tired(5 votes) - Atisn't friendly an adverb? 0:43(4 votes)
- The word "friendly" looks like an adverb (because it ends in "-ly", which many adverbs do), but in this sentence it is an adjective because it is modifying a noun, "bear".
I just tried to imagine using "friendly" as an adverb, and could think of nothing at all.(2 votes)
- would the word "we" be a modifier in the sentence:
Jen set a cardboard tube atop the book piles so that we students could send the marbles down it.(3 votes)- Let's see. Write the sentence without the "we". Then put the "we" back in, and write the sentence without "students". It appears that all three sentences work, and that "we" serves as an intensifier, so I guess it could be considered to function as an adjective in this sentence.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So,
grammarians, we have this class of words called adjectives, and what they do is they change stuff. Adjectives... change stuff. Adjectives change stuff. They're part of this
larger category of words that we call modifiers. Because that's what they do, they modify, they change things. So let's say I were to draw you a bear, a kinda human-looking,
standing on two legs kinda bear, sure. I could refer to this bear
and I could say, the bear. But I could also refer to this bear with a description,
like, the friendly bear. But if that bear were blue, for instance, I could describe the
bear as the blue bear. And in the blue bear the
word blue modifies bear. Blue is an adjective that describes bear. So adjectives change stuff
and they describe stuff. And if that bear were a
different color it would be, you know, the red bear. And now that bear is red. Actually more of a salmon color, frankly. Let's put this into action
with some sentences. Steven is Connie's best friend. Now what is the word that describes or changes another word in this sentence? If you guessed best, you were correct. Best modifies friend. So Steven is Connie's best friend. What is Steven? A friend. What kind of friend is he? The best friend. The enormous pie is not for sale. Now what's the adjective in that sentence? If you guessed enormous
you would be correct. Enormous, which means very big, is modifying or changing the word pie. And I thought a little bit of word origins might be kind of useful here if we go back to the Latin. Now you don't, obviously you don't need to speak Latin in order to
make sense of English, but I thought it would
be cool to look at what adjective literally means. The word part, ad-, comes from the Latin meaning to or toward or on. And the -jective part comes
from a Latin word, jacere. It means to throw. So, an adjective is
something that's kind of thrown on or thrown on top of something, because you don't necessarily need adjectives in order for
a sentence to make sense the way that you need to have a verb or the way that you need to have a noun. Adjectives are a little bit extra, they're thrown on top. These sentences would work on their own without the adjectives in them. Steven is Connie's friend. The pie is not for sale. You know, they would work. But what's nice about adjectives, and modifiers of all
kinds, is that they add something extra, they add more detail. They change and describe stuff. That's what adjectives do. You can learn anything. David out.