Adjective word order

Hey everyone, I have been meaning to write about this for awhile now but it is a bit of a long grammar lesson so I have not felt motivated enough to do it. But today is the day I will talk about the correct adjective word order. In Japanese, you can put adjectives in any order but in English there is a standard order you must follow. Grammatically, it doesn't matter but in terms of usage if you don't follow this order then it sounds VERY WEIRD~!

1. Opinion: lovely, beautiful, smart, perfect
2. Size: big, small, little, tall, long, short
3. Other: angry, cold, dry, firm, disgusting
4. Age: new, old, young, 40-year-old
5. Color: blue, black, yellow, green
6. Origin: American, Japanese, Dutch
7. Material: silk, cotton, wood, metal, plastic
8. Type/Purpose: running shoes, hiking boots

So for example:

She's wearing a beautiful red Vietnamese dress.

I like to drink delicious Jamaican coffee.

It is an ugly big old grey American concrete research library.

It is kind of strange to use adjectives from each group, usually we just use a maximum of 3 or 4 adjectives:

It was a terrific fast-paced 1980s action movie.

I just bought a new green summer dress.

My friend moved into a wonderful big old apartment.

But most people rarely use more than 2 adjectives at once:

My office is in the tall yellow building.

Wow, those are sexy black pants~! Are they new?

REMEMBER adjective order in English is important so:

My office is in the yellow tall building. X

Wow, those are black sexy pants~! Are they new? X

THIS SOUNDS WRONG!!! It sounds funny and strange, unnatural.

Be Careful everyone and enjoy speaking English,

Phil

I'm between a rock and a hard place...

Hey everyone, sorry about only posting 6 times last month but the Japanese silver week holidays took me to Tokyo where I had a nice time. So today I will be doing a short lesson about a common idiom I taught last week. 


between a rock and a hard place


I have seen this in many English textbooks in Japan and it is a pretty common English idiom. It means that you are in a difficult situation or an impossible situation...


A: What's up?


B: I promised my friend I would go out with him for his birthday but now my girlfriend wants me to go to her friend's birthday on the same day~!


A: Ouch, it sounds like you're between a rock and a hard place.


B: I know, it sucks.


----------------------------


These days I'm between a rock and a hard place at work, my boss is really mean but I need the money so I can't quit...


So when you are in a situation when you don't know what to do, all your 
choices seem bad you can say:


"I'm between a rock and a hard place."

Opposites

Ok everyone, today is the second part in my new series about opposites. This week I will talk about simple adjective pairs.

big おおきい <------> small ちいさい

I wanna buy a big house.

I'd like to order a small pizza.

fast はやい <-------> slow おそい

You're too slow~! Hurry up!!!

I love fast cars and fast women ^_-

strong つよい <--------> weak よわい

My friend is really strong.

You shouldn't ask Tim to help you move, he's pretty weak.

tiny ちっちゃい <-------> huge でかい

Tiny means very very small.

Man you live in a tiny apartment~!

Huge means very very big.

Oh my god, this hamburger's HUGE!!!

soft やわらかい <------> hard かたい

This bread is so soft and delicious.

Ouch! This bread is stale, it's too hard to eat!

Hmmm, I guess that is all for now. I hope you enjoyed this mini-lesson and I will introduce more opposites next month!

Phil

Enough~!

Today, I will talk about how to use the word enough correctly. In Japanese, enough is usually translated as "juubun" (十分, じゅうぶん).

Now one of the most common ways to use enough is when someone is serving you food(like in a cafeteria) or pouring you a drink. When they have given you enough food or drink you can say:

"That's enough."

You might also hear this when someone is pouring you a drink:

A: Say when.
B: That's enough.

or

A: Say when.
B: When. (as a joke^_-)

The grammatically correct way to use enough is

-BEFORE nouns and

-AFTER adjectives

For example:

I don't have enough money.

Money is a noun and so enough comes BEFORE money.

She was not pretty enough for me so I broke up with her.

Pretty is an adjective so it comes AFTER enough.

Does everyone understand? If you have any questions or want to try and write some example sentences please post them on my message board on the left side of the screen!

Phil

When I was young I was a total tomboy!

Hey everybody, just a really quick lesson to teach a fun word:

Tomboy

A tomboy is a girl who dresses or acts like a boy. She plays with guns not dolls, she likes to do sports, most of her friends are boys, she likes to play outside, etc.

My sister is such tomboy! She never wears skirts and is always playing baseball!

Can you believe she used to be a tomboy??? Now she's a supermodel!

This is only used to talk about YOUNG GIRLS you CAN'T use it to talk about adult women!

A word you can use to talk about men who act in a feminine way is "effeminate" and this can be used for men or boys but probably is most often used for adults.

For a boy you would just say "He acts like a girl" and probably his father would say "Be a man! Don't cry!" or "Stop acting like a girl!". Bad words for men or boys that are effeminate are pansy (old fashioned) and among kids/teenagers if a boy/guy is not being brave enough or he is being cowardly you might hear "Don't be such a wuss!" or "Stop being such a sissy!"(a bit old fashioned).

You will often hear those expressions in movies where some boys are going to do something stupid(like hit a beehive with a bat) and one boy doesn't want to do it because he thinks it is a bad idea. The other boys will accuse him of being a wuss to make him do it...

Actually, wuss is also old fashioned these days you would probably hear "Stop being such a pussy!" but this is REALLY vulgar and so it is virtually always used by guys.

OK that is it for now, have a great weekend!

Phil

Does that strike you as a good idea?

I recently taught an idioms lesson to one of my more advanced students and I really enjoyed one idiom so I decided to talk about it on my blog ^_^

to strike (someone) as (something)

So this is used when you want to say something seems to be something. It is used to talk about your opinion about something.

Does anything strike your fancy?

This is an old expression meaning do you see anything you like? You might have a shop clerk ask you this question.

Sally: Does Elaine strike you as a bit stressed out today?
Ruby: Yeah, she has a big project due tomorrow.

Your friend is asking for your opinion about someone else. So Sally is asking Ruby if she thinks Elaine looks stressed out today.

He strikes me as a bad guy.

So I think that he is a bad guy. Be careful, the structure:

He/She/person's name strikes me as ----------.

is used to talk about acquaintances and people you DON'T know well. It would be VERY strange to use it to talk about family members or your close friends. You can use it for people you are close to by adding the word "today" at the end of the sentence.

Jill strikes me as really tired today.

OK, if you have any questions just ask!

Phil

I'm just pulling your leg~!

Hey everyone, I had a lovely course last Friday night where I learned some Japanese idioms like "Te ga denai" which literally means I can't put out my hand but has the meaning "I wanna buy it but I can't afford it"...

I also liked the idiom "sune wo kanjiru" which means "mooch off of" or "sponge off of" the image here is someone is bitting my ankle and it is used when kids are bleeding their parents dry, always asking for money.

"Mimi ga itai" literally means my ears hurt but has the meaning "Stop nagging me!" or "Get off my back~!".

But the idiom I found really interesting was "ashi wo hipparu" which literally means "pulling my leg" but the idiomatic meaning is " holding me back". This is when someone is dragging you down and preventing you from succeeding.

Now the reason I found this idiom so interesting is that in English we also have the idiom "to pull (someone's) leg" but the meaning is COMPLETELY different! It means I was just joking, don't believe what I said.

A: My wife is having triplets!
B: What?!?! Three babies! Congratulations, but won't it be tough?
A: Hahaha, I'm just pulling your leg! She's pregnant but with just one baby.
B: Ah ok. Is it a boy or a girl?
A: We don't know yet...

That is it for now, have a good one people,

Phil