What is an Adjective

What is an Adjective explains how to recognize an adjective and where it is placed in an English sentence.

What is an Adjective

Put simply, an adjective describes a noun or pronoun and tells which one, how many, what of kind of and whose.

How Adjectives are Used in Sentences

1. An adjective usually comes before a noun.

The small house caught fire.

2. An adjective sometimes follows a state-of-being verb.

The house is small.

An adjective that follows a state-of-being verb is called a predicate adjective. The predicate adjective still describes the noun.

Articles Belong To The Adjective Family

A, an, and the are articles and they belong to the adjective family. Articles act like adjectives because they point to nouns.

The definite article the refers to a definite or specific person, place or thing.

The indefinite articles a and an refer to no particular persons, places or things.

The house is small. (Referring to a specific house)

A house is small. (Referring to no particular house)

Please note that the indefinite article a is used with words that begin with consonant sounds (a house) and the indefinite article an is used with words that begin with vowel sounds (an apartment).

Please also note the exceptions. The indefinite article an is used before all vowel sounds except the long sound of u. (a unit, a university or a united front)

Furthermore, the indefinite article an is used before a word that begins with a silent h sound. (an honest man or an hour)

Proper Adjectives Belong To The Adjective Family

A proper adjective is made from a proper noun. Also, proper adjectives are always capitalized.

English grammar will help you construct proper sentences.

Andersen park was named after John Andersen.

I created this website to help my children understand Basic English Grammar
because I believe every child should have the ability to write grammatically correct.