a small yellow bird sat on the sunflower
I recently discovered this article and thought it was useful. It spells out the word order for adjectives in the English language. If you have one adjective it's easy but what if you have more than one like the sentence above, what is the order?
So here it is. This is the order.
opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose Noun
Let's say we see a bird and we want to talk about it in English.
The bird is yellow and the bird is small.
The noun, bird, goes at the end. Easy.
According to the list above, size (small) comes before color (yellow).
So it's a small yellow bird.
Use the list to help you when you are studying. Analyze the English language and notice distinctions but don't think about it when you are trying to speak. Most native English speakers can not tell you this adjective word order list without looking it up. If you say yellow small bird, they will say it does not sound right. But they don't know why. It's because they learned the rule by listening to hours and hours and hours of it. So, relax and let it flow.
