"So" and "Such"

The Basics: How to Use "So" and "Such"

Look at this sentence:

 Mary is so intelligent  woman. 

Does the grammar look okay to you? If you think so, then you need to study the rules of  so  and  such again because the sentence is wrong!

Let's review the basic grammar rules for so and such:

so + adjective

Examples: "This test is so hard." "Michael  runs so fast." "The movie was so sad (that) Sarah cried. In both of these sentences, so comes before an adjective (i.e. the words "hard" and "sad"). Meaning: The meaning of the word "so" in the 1st and 3nd sentence is similar to "very." "This test is so hard" is similar to "This test is very hard." In the 3rd sentence, "so" tells you how sad the movie was. How sad was it? Sad enough to make Peter cry. That is the extent (the level of sadness). The movie was "so sad that Peter cried." That is how sad it was.

such + adjective + noun

Examples: "Mary  is such an  intelligent woman ." "I don't want to swim in such dirty water. "Doug is such a fool." "Such" in these sentences has the same meaning as "so" from the sentence "This test is so hard."  But you cannot use "so" if a noun comes after it. This is a rule. That is why we use "such." The nouns in the above sentences are woman, water, and fool. Woman and fool are countable singular nouns, so the sentences also need an article ("a"). Water is an uncountable noun, so it does not need an article (a/an or the).