Modifying nouns – Marketing houses in Umbria

Hi and welcome to another great English lesson from New English Academy. I’m your guide Giles Parker and today we’re going to look at how to change or modify nouns – i.e. which adjectives come before others when they describe a noun. This lesson is aimed at advanced level students but everyone can learn something from it. The comprehension text is titled ‘Marketing houses in Umbria’ and talks about the way real-estate agents describe the beautiful old houses here when they want to sell them to buyers. As ever, check out the website New English Academy.com for all the fun interactive online games, quizzes and tests for this lesson. Also, if you like what you read and hear, don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or send me a comment on how to make this better.

First I’ll talk about the grammar point and give you a few important rules on how to order or sequence adjectives before a noun. Then we’ll look at compound modifiers which often use participles. Lastly we’ll listen to or read (if you have the free transcript) a short text that includes examples of adjectives modifying nouns.

So, first, let’s talk about how to modify nouns. When I say modified, I mean that adjectives, and other nouns, give extra information about a noun – they change the noun and make it more precise and accurate. But what do you do if you have two or more adjectives and nouns before the head noun? Which one should come first? Which one should come second?

Here’s an example of a noun phrase with an adjective and a noun:

· An old house

OK, but let’s be more specific and give more information.

· An old farm house

Did you notice where I put the noun ‘farm’? When nouns modify other nouns, they come directly before the head noun.

Now we know what type of house it is, but we still want to give more information. How about this example:

· A beautiful big old square Italian pink stone farm house.

That’s a lot of adjectives but it really gives a lot of great information. Now we know exactly what we are talking about.

There is a fixed rule for the sequence of adjectives i.e. which adjectives come before others. Typically, most native English speakers will be able to give correct examples of the rule BUT they won’t be able to say what the rule is.  They can intuit the usage but can’t explain it. Sometimes, that is why non-native speakers of a language are the best teachers. You guys can often intuit the usage AND explain the rule, because you studied it. If you’re a non-native teacher of English and you’re listening to this, please stand up and take a bow. You guys rock!

Anyway, back to modifying nouns. Look again at the example I just gave, and this time try to categorize the adjectives. What do they describe?

· A beautiful big old square pink Italian stone farm house.

Can you see seven adjectives or nouns that modify the head noun? We can give an opinion, describe the size, the age, the shape, the nationality or origin, the colour and the material. This is the usual rule for the sequence of adjectives and nouns before a head noun.

1. Opinion

2. Size

3. Age

4. Shape

5. Colour

6. Origin

7. Material

So this is the general sequence. Try it out by describing the room you are in, or the place where you live, or the person you work for. As a hint for usage, I don’t recommend trying to use every category – you don’t have to describe everything – unless you are a real estate agent trying to sell a house. And, you can change the order to show what you want to emphasize.

Did you notice how I read out the sequence? You can see the same thing in the transcript. I mean, each category isn’t separated by a pause or a comma.  But… if you do use two or more adjectives from the same category then just separate them with a comma.

Lastly, let’s look at compound modifiers. These are modifiers that describe a noun but that have two words in them. Usually they are joined by a hyphen, e.g.

· A half-ruined house

· A pre-loved car

· A prize-winning stallion

They can be noun + present participle, noun + past participle, or an adjective + past participle but they all give extra information about the head noun and act just like normal, single word adjectives.  Very often they are collocated with the head noun – that means they usually go together, for example, someone who thinks he is great is described as ‘big-headed’ not ‘large-headed’ or ‘medium-sized-headed’ if he is more modest. My only advice is that you have to learn these compound modifiers just like you learn other adjectives. You can do it!

Now, on to the comprehension text. The area where I live is very rural and there are many old houses for sale. The local real estate agents want to talk them up, that is, tell people how wonderful these houses are, but the reality is that they are often falling down. The text talks about how the real estate agents use language to advertise and market these houses.

Comprehension text - Marketing houses in Umbria

One of the many things that is interesting about living here in the Green Heart of Italy is the real estate market. I don’t mean the types of houses or the prices they sell for. I mean the ways in which houses are bought and sold. And specifically, I mean the way in which property is described and marketed to potential buyers by real estate agents.

Many houses seem to be half-ruined and falling down, or at least in a state of disrepair. They are put up for sale by Italian families who no longer want them, or who can no longer afford to own them. They are bought by mostly upper middle-class European and American people who want a bit of the Italian dolce vita. The foreigners then invest 100’s of thousands of Euros into the property, doing it up to become a glamorous second home that they live in only 3 weeks a year.

These often dilapidated piles are too expensive for the locals to buy. But, the turn-over, the movement of the homes and the subsequent repair and renovation creates a useful local construction and real estate economy. What’s really interesting to me, though, is the way these elderly crumbling houses are described and presented in bright, hopeful, ‘can-do’ language by people who write marketing copy to sell these houses. These writers are artists in their own right.

For example, a two hundred year old stone farmhouse with barely a roof and no utilities is described as ‘pre-loved and bursting with potential’. Well yeah, I guess it has the potential to be weatherproof with electricity, sewage and water. Another lonely, gloomy two-roomed cottage in the middle of the woods is described as being ‘delightfully isolated with options for shade’. A ‘must-see walk-out terrace and open air bathroom’ means a half-completed building without a toilet door. A ‘charming private rustic villa with park-like grounds in need of tender love and care’ could mean the building is surrounded by forest and needs a heating system and other expensive projects to make it half-way habitable.

 

You sometimes wonder who is the more creative in this process of buying and selling. Certainly, once the buyer has bought one of these burnt-out buildings, she needs to be imaginative, energetic and well-funded. But you have to admire the writers’ skills. These are people who can see an uninhabited pile of stones and with bright, creative wording can sell it to potential buyers. To be fair, I guess these writing skills aren’t limited to Umbria. I’m sure they exist all over the world, wherever there is a buyer and a seller. Try it yourself. Choose something you want to sell. How would you talk it up and describe it?