Adverbs

The adverbs and the adjectives in English

Adjectives qualify nouns.

Adverbs qualify actions. Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

Eva is a careful girl ➫ adjective

Eva drives carefully ➫ adverb

Difference between an adjective and an adverb

I am a slow driver ⮞ How am I? ➱ slow ➫ adjective

I drive slowly ⮞ How do I drive? ➱ slowly ➫ adverb

➣Adjective when you indicate something about the noun

➣Adverb when you indicate something about the verb

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reference: English for Life Pre-Intermediate Oxford

NOTE : After the verbs ➣ be ➣ look ➣ taste ➣ sound ➫there is an adjective ➬NOT an adverb

The meal was perfect ➬NOT perfectly

It sounded terrible ➬NOT terribly

Adverbs and adjectives that have the same form

close	daily	early	fair
far	fast	hard	high
late	long	low	right
wide	wrong

Form: Adjective + -ly

adjective	adverb
dangerous	dangerously
safe	safely
happy	happily
horrible	horribly
easy	easily
literal	literally
shy	shyly
GOOD	WELL

➣BE CAREFUL He is a good cat but he does not feel well

➣BE CAREFUL NOT all words ending in -ly are adverbs:

• adjectives ending in -ly: curly, chilly, friendly, elderly, silly, lonely, ugly, lovely, lively
• nouns, ending in -ly: butterfly, family, jelly, ally, bully, melancholy
• verbs, ending in -ly: apply, rely, reply, supply, comply, imply

Used:

➣ to modify verbs

The team played badly.

I want to live intensely.

➣ to modify adjectives

It was an extremely bad match.

I feel rather ashamed.

➣to modify adverbs

Mark behaves utterly well.

There are quite a lot of people.

➣ to modify sentences

Unfortunately, the flight has been cancelled.

Suddenly, the lights went out.

Types:

Adverbs of frequency

They answer how often something happens.

• always
• frequently
• usually
• often
• sometimes
• occasionally
• rarely
• hardly ever
• seldom
• never

These adverbs go before the verb.

Subject	auxiliary	adverb of frequency	verb
He		never	gets up early
They	can	often	do it
I	do not	always	go there

BUT after verb to be

Subject	verb to be	adverb of frequency
Sue	is	seldom late

Adverbs of time

They answer when something happens.

Adverbs of place

They answer where something happens.

Adverbs of manner

They answer how something happens.

Adverbs of degree

They answer how much something happens.

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