A few days ago I watched an old movie.
It was so boring that I fell asleep while watching it.
I could’ve just said that the movie was boring, but I wanted to give you a better idea about how I felt so I used “so”.
We call words like that intensifiers. What they do is give a better idea of what we talk about.
Let’s look at a few intensifiers.
The most common intensifiers are very and really.
The English test was really hard.
John was very unhappy to see his ex-wife.
They made the adjectives hard and unhappy stronger to give us an idea of how people felt.
When it comes to so, I use it instead of very very, like in the first example, or when I know the extent:
Why is he so slow? We always have to wait for him.
In this case, I use so to emphasize that he is slower than me and my friends so I know exactly how slow he is.
Some intensifiers can weaken the words we use with them, like quite and a bit.
I was a bit tired after traveling around the city for 6 hours.
Joe felt quite lonely after his best friend had moved to another city.
In the first sentence, I meant that I’m not very tired, while in the second one, Joe may not suffer as much as we think. 🙂
Let’s also look at too and enough.
You’re driving too fast. Slow down!
What too means in the first sentence is faster than necessary (And I hope you’ll never have to say that to your friends who drive) 🙂
I don’t think he’s smart enough for the job.
Take a look at both sentences above? Notice anything different?
That’s right. The words have a different order. Enough always goes after the adjective.
Hope I didn’t give you too much information today, so now let’s practice the intensifiers a bit.
Do you ever feel too tired to do anything? In these situations, do you motivate yourself to do something or just take a short rest? I’d love to hear your ideas and advice in the comments.