The best Xmas adjective word order practice

The best Xmas adjective word order practice

With your partner(s), try to agree on the ten best/ most important things from this list.

• a traditional chocolate-filled advent calendar
• aromatic alcoholic brandy sauce
• disgusting over-cooked Brussels sprouts
• a heavy round iced Christmas cake
• a long sweet red candy cane
• cute wintery recycled Christmas cards
• catchy traditional Christmas carols
• realistic-looking gold chocolate coins
• clear sour red cranberry sauce
• sticky dried dates
• a freezing-cold snowy Xmas Day
• a merry filling traditional Xmas dinner
• weird yellow eggnog
• a busy traditional German Xmas fair
• cheerful bright multi-coloured fairy lights
• thick steaming-hot brown gravy
• a complicated homemade gingerbread house
• unfunny old Christmas cracker jokes
• sweet brightly-coloured easy-to-peel mandarins/ tangerines
• crumbly freshly-baked mince pies
• aromatic piping-hot mulled wine
• a healthy vegetarian nut roast
• hard-to-use manual nutcrackers
• a bright-red winter poinsettia
• exciting loud party poppers
• crispy brown roast potatoes
• exciting-looking beautifully-wrapped brightly-coloured rectangular presents
• a pretty little red-breasted robin
• a full black cotton sack
• jolly red-cheeked fat Santa
• a magic flying sleigh
• smelly sparkly artificial snow
• a long knitted Christmas stocking
• long sparkly silver and gold tinsel
• a tall green plastic Xmas tree
• a huge home-cooked stuffed turkey
• colourful seasonal wrapping paper
• a prickly real holly wreath

Compare your list with another group, seeing if you can agree on any which you have ranked (very) differently.

Ask about any which you don’t understand, are not sure how to rank, etc, discussing how good or bad they are each time.

 

Xmas things with mixed adjectives

Try to remember or work out what order the adjectives with each noun below should be in. Some are already in the right order.

• a chocolate-filled traditional advent calendar
• alcoholic aromatic brandy sauce
• disgusting over-cooked Brussels sprouts
• a heavy iced round Christmas cake
• a long red sweet candy cane
• cute recycled wintery Christmas cards
• catchy traditional Christmas carols
• gold realistic-looking chocolate coins
• clear red sour cranberry sauce
• dried sticky dates
• a freezing-cold snowy Xmas Day
• a filling merry traditional Xmas dinner
• weird yellow eggnog
• a busy German traditional Xmas fair
• bright cheerful multi-coloured fairy lights
• brown steaming-hot thick gravy
• a complicated homemade gingerbread house
• old unfunny Christmas cracker jokes
• brightly-coloured easy-to-peel sweet mandarins/ tangerines
• crumbly freshly-baked mince pies
• aromatic piping-hot mulled wine
• a healthy vegetarian nut roast
• hard-to-use manual nutcrackers
• a bright-red winter poinsettia
• exciting loud party poppers
• brown crispy roast potatoes
• beautifully-wrapped brightly-coloured exciting-looking rectangular presents
• a little pretty red-breasted robin
• a black cotton full sack
• fat jolly red-cheeked Santa
• a flying magic sleigh
• artificial smelly sparkly snow
• a long knitted Christmas stocking
• long silver and gold sparkly tinsel
• a green plastic tall Xmas tree
• a home-cooked huge stuffed turkey
• colourful seasonal wrapping paper
• a prickly real holly wreath

Try to work out the adjective word order pattern/ rule and use that to help. Then check.  

 

Change groups. Make a list of the ten most important/ desirable things for Xmas from your choice of the mixed adjectives and nouns below. You can use any number of adjectives with each noun, but be careful with word order.

a some many

(non-)alcoholic American antique aromatic/ smelly artificial/ plastic baked/ roast beautiful/ cute/ pretty big/ large/ huge black bright/ brightly… British brown busy/ lively catchy cheap chocolate(-filled) circular/ round clear (freezing) cold (multi-)coloured colourful complicated cotton crispy/ crunchy crumbly dried easy/ easy-to… empty exciting fat filling flashing/ twinkling folded fresh/ freshly… fun full funny German gold green hard/ hard-to… healthy heavy home-cooked

homemade  (piping/ steaming) hot iced icy jolly/ merry/ cheerful juicy little/ small/ tiny local long loud/ noisy luxury magic manual mashed new old prickly quiet/ peaceful real/ realistic rectangular recycled red rich runny seasonal shiny silver sliced snowy soft sour sparkly square steaming sticky stuffed sweet tall thick traditional          vegetarian winter/ wintery wool/ woolly/ knitted yellow

advent calendar angel bauble Brussels sprout candy cane chocolate (coin) Christmas cake Christmas card Christmas carol/ song Christmas crackers Christmas Day/ Eve Christmas dinner Christmas fair Christmas tree cranberry sauce dates/ figs decorations eggnog fairy lights gingerbread (house/man) gravy holly mandarins/ tangerines mince pies mulled wine New Year’s Day/ Eve nuts/ nut roast nutcracker party poppers poinsettia potatoes presents/ gifts pudding sack Santa (Claus) (brandy/ bread) sauce sleigh/ sledge snow(man/ ball) star stocking tinsel turkey wrapping paper wreath

-s

 

Look at other groups’ lists and vote on the best.