Adverbs

Adverbs

Adverbs

What are adverbs?

An adverb is a word that modifies verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.

Adverbs vs Adjectives

The difference between an adverb and an adjective is the following:

  • An adjective modifies a noun.
    Example:
    "John is tall." (The adjective tall modifies the noun John)
  • An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. 
    Examples:
    "That idea is simply ridiculous." (The adverb simply modifies the adjective ridiculous)
    "She sings nicely." (The adverb nicely modifies the verb sing
    "She did it really well." (the adverb really modifies the adverb well)

Read the passage:

Mrs Smith immediately called the police when she saw the criminals assaulting the poor boy aggressively. It was the most horrible scene that she had ever witnessed in her life. She had always lived peacefully in that neighborhood. No one had ever disturbed her quiet nights there.

The words " immediately, aggressively, peacefully, ever, always, there" are adverbs.

What are the different types?

Basically, most adverbs tell you howin what waywhenwhere, and to what extent something is done. In other words, they describe the mannerplace, or time of an action. Here are some examples:

  • He speaks quietly. ( quietly is an adverb of manner.)
  • I live here. (here is an adverb of place.)
  • We'll leave tomorrow . (tomorrow is an adverb of time.)
  • She never sleeps late . (never is an adverb of frequency.)

 Rules:

1. Regular adverbs:

Adverbs in English often end in -ly.

These adverbs are formed by adding -ly to the end of an adjective:

Adjective + ly

Examples:

Adjective Adverb
slow
slowly
beautiful
beautifully
careful
carefully
violent
violently

Spelling rules:

  • true → truly (the silent e is dropped and add ly)
  • happy → happily ( y becomes i and add ly.)
  • possible → possibly (e after a consonant is dropped and ly is added.)
  • full → fully (after ll and add y is added.)
  • fanatic → fanatically (after adjectives ending in -ic add -ally - there is an exception: public-publicly)

2. Exceptions:

However, this is not the only way to form an adverb. Many adverbs do not end in -ly.

This is a list of adverbs that don't follow the rule:

Adjective Adverb
fast
fast
hard
hard
late
late
early
early
daily
daily

Some adjectives change their form when they become adverbs:

adjective
adverb
good
well

3. Things to remember:

Many words are not adverbs although they end in -ly. Here are examples of adjectives that end in -ly.

Examples:

  • a kindly teacher
  • a lonely girl
  • an elderly person
  • a friendly policeman

To decide whether a word is an adverb ask questions with howwhere and when.

  • How does James speak Spanish? He speaks Spanish fluently.
  • Where do the kids play soccer? They play soccer here.
  • When did she write the email to her husband? She wrote the email immediately.

Lessons

  1. Adverbs of certainty express how certain we feel about an action or event. Adverbs of certainty go before the main verb unless the main verb is 'to be', in which case the adverb of certainty goes after.
  2. Many adverbs can have three different forms, the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. Note that it’s not possible to have comparatives or superlatives of certain adverbs, especially those of time (e.g. yesterday, daily, then), place (e.g. here, up, down), and degree (e.g. very, really, almost).
  3. Adverbs of time tell us when an action happened, but also for how long, and how often. Adverbs of time are invariable. They are extremely common in English. Adverbs of time have standard positions in a sentence depending on what the adverb of time is telling us.
  4. Adverbs of manner tell us how something happens. They are usually placed either after the main verb or after the object.
  5. Adverbs of degree tell us about the intensity of something. Adverbs of degree are usually placed before the adjective, adverb, or verb that they modify, although there are some exceptions. The words "too", "enough", "very", and "extremely" are examples of adverbs of degree.
  6. Adverbs that change or qualify the meaning of a sentence by telling us how often or how frequently something happens are defined as adverbs of frequency.
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