Qualifiers and strong adjectives to describe and value

🔊 La maîtresse lit pour toi

Two pupils write about the same restaurant. The first one writes: “The food is good.” The second writes: “The food is delicious.” Neither of them has added a single fact — no price, no dish, no address — and yet the second sentence makes you hungry and the first one does not. Now try to make the first sentence stronger: “very good”. Easy. Try exactly the same with the second: “very delicious”… and something goes wrong in your ear. Why does English accept very in front of one adjective and refuse it in front of the other?

🎓في نهاية هذا الدرس ستكون قادرا على:

التمييز بين النعت العاديّ (⁦gradable⁩) والنعت القويّ (⁦strong⁩)
استعمال المكثّفات ⁦very · quite · really · rather⁩ مع النعت العاديّ
استعمال ⁦absolutely · really⁩ مع النعت القويّ، وتجنّب ⁦very⁩ معه
استبدال ⁦very + نعت عاديّ⁩ بنعت قويّ واحد : ⁦very good ⟹ delicious⁩
كتابة إشهار قصير لمطعم أو مكان بنعوت تُقيّم لا تكتفي بالوصف

🔑يفترض هذا الدرس أنّك تتقن:

موقع النعت في الجملة : قبل الاسم، أو بعد ⁦to be⁩
معنى الظرف (⁦the adverb⁩) وأنّه قد يصف نعتا لا فعلا
رصيدا من النعوت الوصفيّة : ⁦good · bad · big · cold · tired⁩

Presentation

لاحظ الإشهار أوّلا. عدّ النعوت التي فيه : ستجد أنّها تُقيّم ولا تُخبر. ابحث عنها قبل أن تقرأ القاعدة.

An advertising leaflet — Jack's Fish and Chips Corner

You like hot food, don't you? And you surely have dreamed of eating true English food, haven't you? Isn't it time to make your dream come true at Jack's Fish and Chips Corner? Come and enjoy delicious, spicy, nutritious seafood and friendly fast service at the most convenient restaurant in London. Where will you find us? Take the tube to Piccadilly Circus. Turn right into Haymarket Street when you go out of the Piccadilly Circus tube station. We are at the corner of Haymarket Street and Panton Street, next to the Barclays bank.

What does this leaflet tell you before you read any rule?

ماذا يعلّمك هذا الإشهار قبل أن تقرأ القاعدة ؟

Count the facts: one address and one tube station. Everything else is adjectives — and the leaflet still works. Adjectives are not decoration here, they are the argument.
Three adjectives can stand in a row before one noun, separated by commas: “delicious, spicy, nutritious seafood”.
One of those three is not like the other two. “Spicy” and “nutritious” describe; “delicious” judges — it already means “very good to eat”.
The word surely modifies nothing but the writer's confidence: “you surely have dreamed”. It is not an adjective at all — it is an adverb: it makes the whole sentence surer, the way a qualifier makes an adjective stronger.

⟹ The rest of the lesson names two tools: qualifiers, which raise or lower an adjective, and strong adjectives, which are already at the top and need no help.

English adjectives come in two families. ① Ordinary adjectives — good, bad, cold, hot, big, tired, interesting. They have degrees: a place can be quite good, very good, really good. In front of them you put a qualifier: very · quite · really · rather + adjective ② Strong adjectives — delicious, terrible, horrible, fantastic, enormous, freezing, exhausted. The strength is already inside the word: delicious means “very good to eat”, terrible means “very bad”. ⛔ They do not take “very”, because “very” has nothing left to do. They take: absolutely · really + strong adjective

The two families, and the qualifier each one takes

Family	Which qualifier	Example
Ordinary adjective — good, nice, fast, cold	very · quite · really · rather + adjective	The service is very fast. · The evening was quite nice.
Strong adjective — delicious, terrible, fantastic	absolutely · really + adjective	The seafood is absolutely delicious. · The queue was really terrible.
⛔ Never	very + strong adjective	⛔ very delicious · ⛔ very fantastic · ⛔ very enormous

The qualifier always comes in front of the adjective, never after it. And very has no work to do in front of a word that already means very.

Learn them in pairs — the ordinary one, then the strong one

good ⟹ **excellent** · about food: **delicious**bad ⟹ **terrible** · **horrible**cold ⟹ **freezing** · hot ⟹ **boiling**big ⟹ **enormous** · small ⟹ **tiny**tired ⟹ **exhausted** · surprised ⟹ **amazed**nice ⟹ **fantastic** · **wonderful**

One strong adjective instead of two words

الآن الاتّجاه المعاكس : كيف تستبدل ⁦very + نعت⁩ بكلمة واحدة أقوى ؟

Say it in one word

Each of these sentences uses very + an ordinary adjective. Replace the two words by one strong adjective, and do not change anything else. a. The soup is very good. b. The film was very bad. c. I was very tired after the trip. d. The dining room is very cold in winter.

The answers, and the rule behind them

الأجوبة، والقاعدة التي وراءها.

a. The soup is delicious. · b. The film was terrible. · c. I was exhausted after the trip. · d. The dining room is freezing in winter. Four sentences, and each one has become shorter and stronger at the same time. That is what a strong adjective is for: it saves a word and it raises the voice.

very + ordinary adjective = one strong adjective. very good ⟹ excellent · very bad ⟹ terrible · very cold ⟹ freezing · very tired ⟹ exhausted · very big ⟹ enormous ⭐ And the movement works in both directions. If a strong adjective is too much for what you mean, come back down: terrible ⟹ not very good.

Where you will hear them — short reactions, one word each

pleased — **Great!** · **Fantastic!** · This is just what I expected.not pleased — **Terrible!** · **Horrible!** · This is not what I expected.sorry — What a **pity**! · That's a **great** pity.

Look at those reactions again: one strong adjective, and no verb at all. “Terrible!” is a complete answer in English. An ordinary adjective could never do that on its own — nobody shouts “Bad!”

⛔ Two mistakes, and they are mirror images of each other. — not “very delicious”, “very terrible”, “very enormous”. The word is already at the top; very cannot push it higher. — not “absolutely good”, “absolutely cold”. Absolutely means “completely”, and an ordinary adjective is never complete — it has degrees. ⚠️ And watch great: it belongs to both families. “Great!” alone is strong, but “a great pity” is an ordinary adjective meaning “big”. The word does not decide — the sentence does.

⛔ خطآن شائعان : ⁦very⁩ لا تدخل على النعت القويّ (⛔ ⁦very delicious⁩)، و⁦absolutely⁩ لا تدخل على النعت العاديّ (⛔ ⁦absolutely good⁩). القاعدة واحدة : لكلّ عائلة مكثّفها.

Practice

تمارين. أنجزها على كرّاسك أوّلا، ثمّ افتح التصحيح.

Exercise 1 — Choose the right qualifier: very, quite or absolutely

a. The fish and chips were … delicious. b. The restaurant is … convenient — it is next to the tube station. c. Their service is … fast, but the room is … small. d. The queue on Friday evening is … horrible. e. My first English meal was … good, without more.

Answers to Exercise 1

	Answer	Why
a	The fish and chips were absolutely delicious.	delicious is strong ⟹ absolutely, never very
b	The restaurant is very convenient.	convenient is an ordinary adjective
c	Their service is very fast, but the room is quite small.	two ordinary adjectives; quite lowers the second one
d	The queue is absolutely horrible.	horrible is strong ⟹ absolutely
e	My first English meal was quite good, without more.	“without more” tells you the degree is low ⟹ quite, not very

Exercise 2 — Rewrite the leaflet without a single strong adjective

Take these three sentences about the restaurant and write them again using an ordinary adjective and a qualifier instead of the strong one. Then read your version out loud. a. Come and enjoy delicious seafood. b. The service is fantastic. c. Waiting for a table is terrible on Friday.

Answers to Exercise 2

Come and enjoy very good seafood.
The service is very nice.
Waiting for a table is very unpleasant on Friday.

Now compare the two versions out loud. Yours is correct English, and it is flat. Nobody puts “very good seafood” on a leaflet, because “very good” is what you say about a meal you have forgotten. ⟹ The strong adjective is not a difficult word for good pupils: it is the word that makes a description worth reading.

At the BEM, qualifiers and strong adjectives are tested in two places. In Mastery of language, as a choice inside a sentence — “circle the right word: the cake was (very / absolutely) delicious”. In Written expression, they are what separates a paragraph that gets the marks from one that does not, whenever the subject asks you to advertise, recommend or describe. Keep three things ready: very + ordinary adjective ; absolutely + strong adjective ; and one strong adjective in place of “very + …” whenever you want your reader to feel something. ⛔ The mistake that costs marks every year: “very delicious”, “very excellent”, “very terrible”.

Describing is one thing, valuing is another. To value, English gives you two tools that must not be mixed: a qualifier in front of an ordinary adjective — very, quite, really, rather — and a strong adjective that carries its own “very” inside it and refuses another one. Choose the second whenever you can: one word, and your reader stops reading and starts wanting.

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