UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION - RUKARA CAMPUS

ACADEMIC YEAR: 2023-2024

LEVEL: 1 - SEMESTER :1

MODULE TITLE: English For General Purposes

MODULE CODE: EGP1111

DATE OF ASSIGNMENT: July 14, 2023

DATE OF SUBMISSION : August 24, 2023

COMBINATION: MPE

GROUP No: 8

No REGISTRATION NUMBER COMB. SIGNATURE

1. 223007327 MPE
2. 223010134 MPE

3. 223026832 MPE

4. 223009257 MPE

5. 223026975 MPE

6. 223008664 MPE

7. 223019578 MPE

8. 223001559 MPE

9. 223002297 MPE

10. 223009823 MPE

 (Warm up)

ADJECTIVES

Points to consider on:

 Meaning of Adjectives and where they are used in a sentence

 Adjectives with '-ing' and '-ed'
 Adjective order
 Comparative and superlative adjectives
 Intensifiers
 Mitigators
 Noun modifiers

1. Meaning and Usage of Adjectives in a sentence.

An adjective (Ntera in Kinyarwanda) is a word that tells us more about a noun. It tells the reader
how much”, “how many” or “what kind” of something you are talking about. In simple words,
we use adjectives to describe nouns.

 Most adjectives can be used in front of a noun:

Examples:

1. Negamiyimana has a beautiful house.

2. We saw a very exciting film last night.

 or after a link verb like be, look or feel:



 Their house is beautiful.

That film looks interesting.

Activity 1. Read carefully these sentences, Are the sentences correct or wrong?

1. KAREKEZI saw a programme really good on TV last night.

2. Nirere got two young children.
3. I didn't know your mother French was.
4. Peter, Are you OK? You look terrible!
5. Murerwa’s chicken doesn't very good smell. How old is it?
6. My group members like to see Seburikoko commedy. It interesting sounds.
 ANSWERS
1. Wrong
2. Correct
3. Wrong
4. Correct
5. Wrong
6. Wrong

2. ADJECTIVES WITH '-ing' and '-ed.

A lot of adjectives are made from verbs by adding -ing or -ed:

 -ing adjectives

The commonest -ing adjectives are:

amusing frightening
annoying tiring
boring shocking
disappointing surprising
exciting worrying
interesting

If you say something is interesting, you mean it interests you:

I read a very interesting article in the newspaper today.

If you say something is terrifying, you mean it terrifies you:

That Dracula film was absolutely terrifying.

 -ed adjectives

The commonest -ed adjectives are:

annoyed excited
bored frightened
closed tired
delighted worried
 disappointed

We had nothing to do. We were really bored.

If something terrifies you, you can say you are terrified.

Munezero didn’t really enjoy the African culture films. Most of the time she was terrified.

Activity 2. Choose the correct adjective.

A. I enjoyed the film but it was really ........... (frightening, frightened)

B. I: What's your favorite football team? II: I don't know. I'm not really .................. football.

1 interesting in
2 interested in
C. I'm …………………………………………………………………... this film. Can we watch
something else?

1.boring with
1. bored with
D. I can't stop reading this book. It's ……………….! (Exciting, excited)

E. I'm feeling very ...................................... I think I'll go to bed. (Tiring, tired)

F. Dear Anita, First of all, congratulations on your exam results! You must be
really ..................(pleasing, pleased)

3. ADJECTIVES ORDER

Two adjectives

We often have two adjectives in front of a noun:

a handsome young man

a big black car
that horrible big dog

 Some adjectives give a general opinion. We can use these adjectives to describe almost
any noun:
good nice awful
bad beautiful important
lovely brilliant wonderful
strange excellent nasty

Samuel is a good/wonderful/brilliant/bad/dreadful teacher.

Mwizerwa read a good/wonderful/brilliant/bad/dreadful book.

 Some adjectives give a specific opinion. We only use these adjectives to describe
particular kinds of noun, for example:

Food Furniture, buildings People, animals

delicious comfortable clever
tasty uncomfortable intelligent
friendly

We usually put a general opinion in front of a specific opinion:

nice tasty soup

a nasty uncomfortable armchair
a lovely intelligent animal

We usually put an opinion adjective in front of a descriptive adjective:

 a nice red dress

a silly old man
those horrible yellow curtains

Activity 3: Put the adjectives into the correct group.

 Comfortable, lovely, intelligent, big, awful, red, friendly, red, friendly, Japanese,
good, young, clever, tasty. Green, bad, small, old, beautiful, silly, uncomfortable,
horrible, nice, delicious,

General opinion Specific opinion Descriptive

General Rule: For a deep re-cap, while formulating sentences with many adjectives, you may
follow this order: Quantity e.g. twenty, Quality or opinion e.g. amazing, Size e.g. big, Age e.g.
old, Shape e.g. rectangular, Color e.g. red, Proper adjective e.g. Rwandan, and lastly purpose or
qualifier e.g. sports.
General examples:
 Nishyirwehejuru Sadine is a beautiful, tall, thin, young, black-haired, Rwandan lady.
 Uwamahoro Nadine gave us a round, Italian, bread-like Christmas cake.

4. COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES.

Comparative adjectives

 We use comparative adjectives to show change or make comparisons:

Examples:

Robert fell happier when he is playing basketball.

Rukara campus has a bigger garden.

 We use than when we want to compare one thing with another:

1. Marry is two years older than Cyomoro.

2. Kigali city is much bigger than Muhanga town.
3. DRC is a bigger country than Rwanda.

 When we want to describe how something or someone changes we can use two
comparatives with and:

1. The balloon got bigger and bigger.

2. Everything is getting more and more expensive
3. Grandfather is looking older and older.

 We often use the with comparative adjectives to show that one thing depends on
another:
 1. The faster you drive, the more dangerous it is.
(= When you drive faster, it is more dangerous.)
2. The higher they climbed, the colder it got.
(= When they climbed higher, it got colder.)

Superlative adjectives

We use the with superlative adjectives:

1. My university graduation will be the happiest day of my life.

2. Everest is the highest mountain in the world.3
3. “When you kiss me” is the best song I have heard this year
4. RWEMA have three sisters: Jane is the oldest and Gatesi is the youngest.

How to form comparative and superlative adjectives

 We usually add –er and –est to one-syllable words to make comparatives and
superlatives:

Example: - old, long,

 If an adjective ends in –e, we add –r or –st:

Example: nice, large

 If an adjective ends in a vowel and a consonant, we double the consonant:

Example: big, fat

 If an adjective ends in a consonant and –y, we change –y to –i and add –er or –est:

Example: happy, silly

 We use more and most to make comparatives and superlatives for most two syllable
adjectives and for all adjectives with three or more syllables:

Example: Interesting, Careful

  However, with these common two-syllable adjectives, you can either add –er/–r and –
est/–st or use more and most:

common narrow
cruel pleasant
gentle polite
handsome simple
likely stupid

1. He is certainly handsomer than his brother.

2. His brother is handsome, but he is more handsome.

3. She is one of the politest people I have ever met.

4. She is the politest person I have ever met.

The adjectives good, bad and far have irregular comparatives and superlatives:

Good Better best

Bad Worse worst
Far farther/further farthest

5. INTENSIFIERS

 We use words like very, really and extremely to make adjectives stronger:

1. Everyone was very excited.

2. Tom and Jelly is a really interesting story.
3. Everyone was extremely excited, because of ceremony

 We also use enough to say more about an adjective, but enough comes after its adjective:

1. If you are seventeen, you are old enough to drive a car.

2. I can't wear those shoes. They're not big enough.
  We do not normally use very with these adjectives. We do not say something is very
enormous or someone is very brilliant.

With strong adjectives, we normally use intensifiers like:

1. The film was absolutely awful.

2. He was an exceptionally brilliant child.
3. The food smelled really disgusting.

6.MITIGATORS

 Mitigators are the opposite of intensifiers. When we want to make an adjective less
strong we use these words: fairly, rather, quite

1. By the end of the day, we were rather tired.

2. The film wasn't great, but it was quite exciting.

and in informal English: pretty

 We had a pretty good time at the party.

quite

 When we use quite with a normal adjective, it makes the adjective less strong:

1. The food was quite bad.

(= The food was bad but not very bad.)
2. My nephew is quite clever.
(= My nephew is clever but not very clever.)

 But when we use quite with a strong adjective, it means the same as absolutely:

1. The food was quite awful.

(= The food was absolutely awful.)
2. As a child he was quite brilliant.
(= As a child he was absolutely brilliant.)
 MITIGATORS WITH COMPARATIVES

 We use these words and phrases as mitigators:

1. She's a bit younger than I am.

2. It takes two hours on the train but it is a little bit longer by road.
3. This one is rather bigger

 We use slightly and rather as mitigators with comparative adjectives in front of a noun:

1. This is a slightly more expensive model than that.2.

2. This is a rather bigger one than that.

7. NOUN MODIFIERS.

 We often use two nouns together to show that one thing is a part of something else:

1. the village church

2. the car door
3. the kitchen window
4. the chair leg
5. my coat pocket
6. Kigali residents

In these examples, the first noun is called a noun modifier.

We do not use a possessive form for these things. We do NOT talk about:

the car's door

the kitchen's window
the chair's leg

 We can use noun modifiers to show what something is made of:

a gold watch
a leather purse
a metal box

 We often use noun modifiers with nouns ending in –er:

an office worker
a jewellery maker
a potato peeler

 We use measurements, age or value as noun modifiers:

a thirty-kilogram suitcase
a two-minute rest
a five-thousand-euro platinum watch
a fifty-kilometre journey

 We often use nouns ending in -ing as noun modifiers:

a shopping list
a swimming lesson
a walking holiday
a washing machine

 We often put two nouns together and readers/listeners have to work out what they
mean:

an ice bucket
(= a bucket to keep ice in)

an ice cube
(= a cube made of ice)

an ice breaker
(= a ship which breaks ice)

the ice age

(= the time when much of the Earth was covered in ice)

Sometimes we find more than two nouns together:

London office workers

grammar practice exercises

Noun modifiers come after adjectives:

the old newspaper seller

a tiring fifty-kilometre journey

Muchas Gracias = Vielen Dank = Asante sana