Gradable and Non-Gradable Adjectives

B1AdjectivesMarch 3, 2026

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hi in today's video i'm going to talk

about gradable and non-gradable

adjectives

[Music]

let's start with gradable adjectives

gradable adjectives can be measured so

an object can have more or less of a

particular quality

cold is a gradable adjective something

can be a bit cold pretty cold very cold

or extremely cold another example is

hungry you can be a bit hungry quite

hungry or very hungry

other examples of gradable adjectives

include

big

boring

cheap

funny

good

happy

important

rich

strong

tired

we can use gradable adjectives with

modifiers such as a bit pretty very

and those modifiers tell us how

strong

the adjectives are here are the most

common modifiers that we use with

gradable adjectives

a little

a bit

slightly

pretty

quite really

very

extremely

non-gradable adjectives include absolute

and extreme adjectives

first let's talk about absolute

adjectives

dead

is an absolute adjective you can't pay a

bit dead or

very dead um it doesn't make sense

you're either dead or alive um another

example is finished something cannot be

pretty finished or extremely finished

with absolute adjectives you can imagine

having a switch

if it's on

something is finished if it's off

it's not finished and there is nothing

in between

other absolute adjectives include

acceptable

destroyed

free

impossible

necessary perfect

ruined

unacceptable

if we want so we can make absolute

adjectives a bit stronger and to do so

we use three modifiers

absolutely

completely and totally

so something can be absolutely necessary

completely ruined or totally acceptable

now that you know what absolute

adjectives are let's talk about extreme

adjectives

an example of an extreme adjective is

exhausted which means very tired

another example is delicious which means

very tasty so as you can see extreme

adjectives already are quite

strong hence the name extreme

some other examples of extreme

adjectives include

ancient

awful

boiling

excellent

freezing

terrible

tiny if we want to make extreme

adjectives even stronger than they

already are we can use absolutely and

really

for example

absolutely terrible

really tiny

absolutely exhausted or really delicious

thanks for watching give this video a

like if you enjoyed it and subscribe to

my channel to be up to date with my

english lessons

have a great day and i'll see you next

time bye

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About this lesson

Learn the difference between gradable and non-gradable adjectives and how to use them correctly in English.

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