Day 19 Strong adjectives AND Too much / too many / enough / not enough / very
1.Strong adjectives
Normal adjectives - Strong adjectives
funny - hilarious
bad - terrible
good - wonderful, amazing, fantastic, fabulous
Intensifiers for normal adjectives
very, quite, not so, just a little bit
Intensifier for strong adjectives
absolutely
2.Too much / too many / enough / not enough / very
Meaning and use
In English, we can use too, enough and very with adjectives to indicate degree. Too describes something negative or unwanted, enough describes the right amount of something, and very makes the adjective stronger.
Matthew: Those shoes were very nice. Did you buy them?
Simon: No, I didn’t. They were too expensive.
Jenny: Did you buy that dress?
Sally: No, I didn’t. It wasn’t big enough.
We can also use too with much and many to talk about an amount or number of something which is more or less than what we want or need. For countable nouns, such as ‘apples’ or ‘people’, we use many. For uncountable nouns, like ‘rice’ or ‘water’, we use much.
There are too many people on the bus.
There is too much salt in this soup.
Form
For degree, we use too + adjective.
For amount or number, the order is too + many/much + noun.
It’s too hot in here.
James ate too much pizza.
Too many people came to the theatre.
Enough comes after an adjective or before a noun:
adjective + enough
enough + noun
My handwriting is good enough.
His car isn’t fast enough.
We have enough food.
I don’t have enough money.
Very comes before adjectives and makes them stronger:
very + adjective
not very + adjective
That test was very difficult.
The weather’s not very nice today.
Positive
There are too many people in the pool.
We have enough money to buy a house.
Negative
There aren’t enough tickets for the show.
That meal wasn’t too expensive.
Question
Are you comfortable enough?
Are there enough chairs for everyone?
Take note: strong adjectives
We do not use very if the adjective is already strong. These examples are wrong:
The pianist was very excellent.
The Grand Canyon is very enormous.
Her response was very correct.
These are correct:
That movie was incredible.
Her performance was dreadful.
The weather’s perfect.
Spoken English
The word enough is pronounced with the short vowel sound /ʌ/ (as in cup) and the voiceless sound /f/ (as in fat) at the end.
I don’t have enough **/ɪnʌf/**money.
3.Vocabulary Reference
Londoners
people who live in London
first-time buyers
people buying their first home
the property ladder
the stages in owning property, when you first buy a small house or flat, then a bigger one, then an even bigger one, and so on
properties
(here) houses, flats, apartments
house-hunters
people looking for a house to buy
family housing
housing built especially for families
green belt
the name for an area of fields and trees and no city development around London
rural
relating to the countryside, not the city
affordable
reasonably priced; not too expensive
expanding
(here) getting bigger
unusable
not good enough to be used
industrial
used for industry and factories
commercial
used for shops and stores
the Treasury
the UK government department responsible for deciding how the government spends money
critics
(here) people who disagree strongly with something
residential
used for housing
judging
(here) deciding
hot
(here) very spicy
throw away
(here) put in the rubbish bin
takeaway
food cooked in a restaurant that is eaten somewhere else
open-plan
having a large room that is not divided into smaller rooms or areas
hot-desking
a practice where workers do not have their own desk - instead they use whichever desk is free
head teacher
the teacher who is in charge of a school
county
an area of a country (the UK is divided into 86 counties)
to claim
to say that something is true
strain
stress or pressure
overcrowded
containing too many people
capacity
enough space
to turn people away
not to allow people to enter
prospect
possibility of something happening in the future
cash
money
guest list
names of people who are asked to come to a party
banquet
large formal meal
merry
happy and animated
catching up
discussing what happened since the last time you met someone
honeymoon
a holiday for the new husband and wife after the wedding