[elliottkember]

> Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.

Foreign languages always sound strange. There are rules that are invisible even to the native speakers who know them. The romance is not in knowing them, but the fun of figuring them out.