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  • Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is grammar. And actually,

  • I had quite a few requests for this lesson, because these seem to give people a lot of

  • trouble, especially in writing. Okay? "Compound Adjectives".

  • Firstly, what is a compound adjective? Mostly, you'll notice a compound adjective has the

  • hyphen in it. Right? It's a two- or three-part... Two- or three-word adjective that, together,

  • acts as one word. Okay? That's very important to remember. It may have one word, it may

  • have two words, it may have three words connected by a hyphen, but they work all together like

  • one word, one adjective word. Okay. Let's look at a few examples before we get into

  • the details of how to construct these.

  • "I heard a girl speaking English."

  • "I have an English-speaking friend."

  • Now, what's the difference between these two? "I heard a girl who was speaking English."

  • or: "I heard a girl with an", gerund. So, this could be a participle, this could be

  • a gerund; it doesn't matter. It comes after "the girl", and this is what she is doing.

  • Okay?

  • "I have an English-speaking friend." Now, I can change this sentence and say: "I have

  • a friend who speaks English." But it's much easier just to say an adjective about the friend.

  • Now, it's very important to remember an adject-... Sorry, a compound adjective comes before a noun.

  • It always becomes before a noun; never after it. If it comes after it, it's no longer

  • a compound adjective. There's no more need for the hyphen. Okay? Let's look at more examples.

  • "A strong, healing lotion". Or: "A fast-healing cut". Now, even though it's a fast-healing

  • cut, I would still want to use a strong, healing lotion. What's the difference, here? Here,

  • first of all, you notice the comma. I have two adjectives. It's a strong lotion, it's

  • a healing lotion. These are two separate ideas about this noun. Okay? They're not joined

  • together. Each one affects the lotion. Here, "fast-healing lotion", it's fast and it's

  • healing... "A fast-healing cut", sorry. It's fast and it's healing about this cut.

  • So, for example, you go to a doctor and he needs to remove a mole. You have like a little

  • thing growing on your arm. So he cuts it, but he's a specialist, he's very professional.

  • It's a very fast-healing cut. In two days, you won't even know there was a cut there.

  • Right? So, both these words-this is an adverb-okay?-this is a participle-both work as one word about

  • "cut". Now, you don't really need to worry about this, but just in case you're interested,

  • if you're writing and you have a word count... For example, IELTS or TOEFL, you have to write

  • 250 words or 350 words, respectively. This is one word; not two words. Remember that.

  • Okay?

  • Next: "A man eating lion". Now, I don't know if people actually eat lions. I don't know

  • how they would taste. I'm sure they're kind of gamey. It means a little bit strong taste.

  • But I saw a man eating lion. So this man was eating that lion.

  • But, then I saw: "A man-eating lion" eat the man. How does that work? "A man-eating lion",

  • so this is a compound clause describing "lion". A lion who eats people. Okay? Very different meaning.

  • So, now you're saying: "Okay, well, where do I put the adjective? Where do I put the

  • compound adjective? Like, before, after, not at all, with a hyphen, without the hyphen?"

  • So this is what we're going to look at next. But, before we do that, this is where people

  • make the most mistakes in writing, especially English learners. Okay? "My nephew is 10 years

  • old." Okay? With the "s", no hyphen; after the noun, after the "be" verb. But: "I have

  • a 10-year-old nephew." No "s", and two hyphens, and they become before the noun "nephew".

  • Now, it doesn't matter if you print the number "10" or if you write the word "ten". If you're

  • using it as a compound adjective before the noun, then you have the hyphens, you don't

  • have the "s". But let's look at more specific details to know how to use and what sort of

  • words we can combine to make a compound adjective.

  • Okay, so let's see how we construct compound adjectives. There's a few ways to construct

  • them. We're going to look at two. We're going to look at a few more after that. First of

  • all, you can begin by using an actual adjective or an adverb plus a participle. Again, two

  • types of participles; "ing" like: "talking" or "looking", or there's the past participle,

  • which is "ed" or irregular verb, however that ends. Right? Oh, sorry. My mistake here. There

  • you go. "Known" or "eyed". We'll talk about that "eyed" in a second.

  • So, what you do, you join the adjective or the adverb, plus the hyphen, plus the participle.

  • So: "Fast-talking", like a fast-talking salesman. He knows exactly what to say. He talks fast;

  • you can't keep up. You don't understand what he's saying. Next thing you know, you're signing

  • for a brand new car. You don't even know what you paid. He's a fast-talking salesman.

  • "Good-looking". A good-looking girl, a good-looking boy, etc.

  • "Blue-eyed". Somebody who has blue eyes, you could say: "A blue-eyed man", or: "A blue-eyed

  • woman", "A blue-eyed child".

  • "Well-known". A well-known professor. Now, again, very, very important to remember, all

  • of these would come before the noun.

  • So: "She is a good-looking girl.", "She is good looking." They mean the same. The two

  • sentences mean exactly the same way, but... Mean exactly the same thing, but different

  • structure. Okay. Sorry, I just realized another one. "Participle". Okay. Participle. So, this

  • is the participle, this is the participle, but: after the verb, no hyphen; before the

  • verb, hyphen. Both of these about the noun.

  • Now, I talked about blue-eyed. Now you're thinking: "'Eye' is not a verb." I mean, it

  • is a verb, you can eye something. Means you can see it and want it. But in this case,

  • it just means to have something.

  • So, body parts, for some reason, we can turn into participles. "Hair", "a dark-haired woman",

  • "a brown-eyed boy", "a long-nosed man", "a thick-lipped woman", "a wide-bodied truck".

  • It doesn't have to be about a person, actually. We can use body for many things, but you could

  • say... You know, so say: "Bone", like... Sometimes people say like for heavy people, we say:

  • "Big-boned". Not very nice thing to say, but people say it. Just so you know... And there's

  • other verbs, but I'm not going to talk about those today; they don't have anything to do

  • with this lesson. So, body parts, you can turn into participles, add an adjective, and

  • you have a compound adjective.

  • Now, you can also use a noun plus a participle to create a compound adjective. Okay?

  • "Sun-dried tomatoes", these are very delicious. You put them on your pasta, whatever you do.

  • "A blood-sucking leech", now, I'm not sure if you know what a leech is. A leech is a

  • very, very tiny, little worm that it comes onto your body, like usually in a tropical

  • place, humid, lots of water, standing water. It'll crawl up, you won't even know it's there.

  • It'll start sucking your blood, and it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Sometimes

  • they can get this big, full of your blood. And they're very hard to get off; they like

  • to stick. But they are blood-sucking leeches. Okay? So, this, we have "blood", we have the

  • participle "sucking" about the "leech". This is what they do.

  • Now, let's say Beyoncé, I don't know, whoever you like, releases a new album and she has

  • record-breaking sales. Huge sales. The records, the most sales by an artist, broke them. But

  • again, this, an adjective for that. Okay, we have adjectives, adverbs, and participles.

  • We have nouns and participles. Let's look at a few more.

  • Okay, last few examples to look at. Very important to remember, when you're using numbers, numbers

  • plus nouns to describe another noun, although there's no adjective involved here, although

  • technically numbers are adjectives, but the whole thing becomes an adjective to that noun.

  • Okay? So, "a 10-storey building". So: "Across the street they're building a 10-storey building."

  • Okay? They're putting up a 10-storey building. So notice we have "10". Even if you write

  • the word "ten", it doesn't matter. It's still a number plus a noun that, together, are used

  • as an adjective for the building, for the other noun. So make sure you have the dash.

  • But if you talk about the building and you talk about how many stories it has and you

  • put it after the building, then that building has "10 stories" with the "s", okay?

  • "That building has 10 stories." Just remember add the "s" after the noun; with a hyphen, no "s".

  • Your teacher in university, and this is very common, so when you get to university, be

  • prepared to write "10-page essays". Not "10 pages essays", "10-page essays". You can put

  • a "one-page"... Sorry, "A one 10-page essay", or: "10 page essays". Again, if you put it

  • after, the essay needs to be 10 pages.

  • We already spoke about this. "10-year-old boy". "A boy who is 10 years old". Now, you'll

  • also notice I said you will have to write... Let's say I'm the professor. You're joining

  • my course. Over the whole year, you will have to write five 10-page essays. So don't worry

  • about this number. This is a different 5 essays, 10 pages each. So: "Five 10-page essays".

  • Okay? And again, when you're speaking, you'll have to make that pause on the comma. In writing,

  • it's obvious, it's clear.

  • Last one, when you have number plus measure... time or any other measure. So, I have to work

  • an "8-hour shift" today. An "8-hour" is an adjective for the type of shift. "8-hour".

  • Any other measure, like you're talking about feet, you're talking about pounds, you're

  • talking about ounces, you're talking about litres. It doesn't matter what the unit of

  • measure is, if you're putting a number before it, and the number plus the measure describe

  • the noun, make sure you have your hyphen. And again, not: "five-feet wall", "five-foot

  • wall". That wall is five feet high. It is a five-foot-high wall. And if you want to

  • put the "high", you don't need to, but if you want to, then you got a three-word compound

  • adjective; you have two hyphens. Okay? Same story applies for plural before or after.

  • This is an irregular plural; "one-foot", "two feet", doesn't matter. Same rule applies.

  • After the noun, "feet"; before the noun, "foot".

  • Now, if you have any questions about compound adjectives, please feel free to ask me on

  • www.engvid.com in the comment section under the quiz. Of course, take the quiz and practice

  • all of this. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouToo channel... YouTube channel. Sorry.

  • See you again soon. Bye.

Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is grammar. And actually,

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學習英語標點符號。如何使用複合形容詞的連字元 (Learn English Punctuation: How to use hyphens with compound adjectives)

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    Ryan Lee 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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