Upper-Intermediate ๐Ÿ“ Grammar ยท #166 of 305

Complex Noun Phrases

Pre- and post-modification of nouns.

Examples

  • the long-awaited report on climate change

Key rules

  • Structure: determiner + premodifiers + head noun + postmodifiers
  • Order of adjectives: opinion, size, age, colour, origin, material
  • Postmodifiers: prepositional phrases, relative clauses, participles
  • Avoid long strings of nouns

Common mistakes

  • A red big car โ†’ A big red car
  • The man in the corner who is tall โ†’ The tall man in the corner
๐Ÿ’ก Tip: Practise adding information before and after the noun.

Related Upper-Intermediate topics

See all Upper-Intermediate grammar lessons โ†’