Describing Pets

You can also describe your pet's age.

Age can be described in detail by days, weeks, months, or years.

You can also describe your pet's age generally by using adjectives like young, old, adult, or senior.

And lastly, you can describe your pet's behavior and personality with opinion adjectives.

Opinion adjectives describe what we think or feel about something.

Adjectives like beautiful, smart, and funny are all opinion adjectives.

Opinion adjectives are just one category of adjectives.

There are many different categories.

What some English learners might not know is the order of these categories is important when two or more adjectives from different categories are used to describe a noun.

The order of the adjective categories is as follows.

1 Quantity.

Quantity adjectives describe the amount of something.

2 Opinion.

Opinion adjectives describe what someone thinks about something, that person's opinion.

3 Size.

Size adjectives describe how big or small something is.

4. Age.

Age adjectives are used to describe the age of something.

You can use specific numbers or more general words.

Sometimes American English speakers put age adjectives before opinion adjectives.

5. Shape or length.

These adjectives describe the form and size of something.

You can use specific shapes like a triangle or square, or length words like long or short.

6. Color.

Color is a great way to describe animals, as they come in many different colors.

7. Origin.

These adjectives describe where something or someone came from.

For pets, breed is a common term used to describe origin.

8. Material.

These adjectives describe the substance that things are made of.

Often these adjectives come from the nouns they describe.

9. Purpose.

Purpose adjectives are just that.

They describe purpose or how something works.

Let's describe my cat Suti Chai and see what category of adjectives I use.

Suti Chai is a large four-year-old Siamese cat.

He has big blue eyes.

He also has a cute little white spot on his belly.

In the first sentence, we have the adjectives large, four-year-old, and Siamese.

Large is in the size category.

It comes before four year old, which describes his age.

And lastly, we have Siamese.

Siamese is a breed of cat and describes its origin.

Siamese cats are believed to have come from the country of Siam.

Today, English speakers call it Thailand.

In the second sentence, there are the adjectives big and blue to describe his eyes.

Size adjectives come before color adjectives.

And in the last sentence, we have the opinion adjective cute that comes before the size adjective little, and little comes before the color adjective of white.

Today we looked at how we can describe our pets and the order of the adjectives we use to describe them.

You can use adjectives for size, shape, or color to describe their appearance.

You can also use age and opinion adjectives in either order in American English.

Lastly, if you know your animal's breed or where they are from, you can use origin adjectives to describe them.

Now it is your turn.

Using the order of adjectives, describe your pet.

Share your description in an email to learningenglish@voanews. Com.

I'm Faith Perlo.