Build Your Vocabulary | Strong Adjectives & Intensifiers

© DC Comics/Warner Communications

Superman and Wonder Woman are two very strong OOPS! immensely strong, or powerful, characters - and good...um....perfect examples for today's post on strong adjectives💪!


Using high frequency words is fine at the beginning of your ESL studies, but as you become more comfortable and fluent, you want to start building good -oops! - a more expansive vocabulary. This will make your writing much more interesting.

One way to make adjectives strong (or strong adjectives stronger) is to use intensifiers. For example,

• SO
• VERY (don't use this too much)
• REALLY
• AT ALL
• EXTREMELY
• AMAZINGLY
• INCREDIBLY
• FAIRLY
• QUITE 
• (MUCH) MORE
• EXCEPTIONALLY

Let's now look at an example using the words very and strong.

Wonder Woman is very strong! (Okay)

Wonder Woman is incredibly powerful! (💪)

If you need help finding new words, use Thesaurus.com or Merriam-Webster Thesaurus Remember to look up how these words are used. You want to avoid making very bad mistakes - OOPS! - horribly embarrassing mistakes. 

PRACTICE

1/ The British Council's  review and exercise on Intensifiers with Strong Adjectives.

2/ Re-write the sentences below using intensifiers and strong adjectives. 

The Hulk is often very angry.

Nanaimo bars are very good

.

Dwayne Johnson is very hungry.

Komodo dragons are very scary.

Homer is very funny.

Extra Study

English With Lucy has a really fascinating lesson on overused words in the English language.