Learning Adjectives

Question

I am thinking of learning a list of adjectives. I don't know if I should learn them by category (color,condition, feelings...) or by alphabetical order(The adjectives that start with A, adjectives that start with B...)

What do you think would be best?

Andriy Lapin · Accepted Answer

Dear friend,

several approaches exist, and neither one can guarantee positive results if your own inclinations and preferences are not taken into account. My view is that it can be very useful to begin by building the so-called core vocabulary. Some dictionaries for learners of English, for instance, use this vocabulary to explain any other word in English. Therefore, I advise that you learn adjectives on the basis of their frequency in the language. Some lists you may find of use are placed here and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English#Adjectives.

There is a myriad of ways to acquire new vocabulary (from studying a synopsis of categories to learning words letter by letter), but it is necessary to recognise that words (including adjectives) do not occur in isolation, but rather collocate, and you might, for instance, find it useful to learn adjective + noun collocations ( eg when you come across the word language, you can find out with which adjectives it frequently goes together; these are, for instance, spoken/written/foreign/international/official/second/universal/colloquial... <language> ). By learning such combinations, you will not only enrich your language competence, but will also get ready linguistic 'chunks' to reproduce in speech.To that end, there exist combinatory dictionaries; general English dictionaries for foreign students feature collocations in their entries or in special 'collocation boxes', too.

Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff

Learning Adjectives

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