Adverbs

Adverbs are the wildcard of any language. They can be formed out of anything and applied to nearly everything. They are the last piece of our puzzle. The last question to answer.

• The subject and object (nouns + adjectives) answer the question Who?
• The verb answers the question What?
• Relative clauses usually answer the question Why?

Adverbs try to answer the remaining questions: When? Where? and How?

Adverbs modify a verb, adjective or other adverb. They can be a word or a phrase.

You can find adverbs by rephrasing a sentence in interrogative form:

Mark loudly sang the beautifully composed song there.

• How did Mark sing? Loudly
• How was the song composed? Beautifully
• Where did Mark sing? There

As you can see, adverbs are everywhere. But they rarely stand on their own in a sentence. They modify what already exists.

• If they modify a verb, they are usually placed after it.
• If they modify an adjective, they are placed in front of it.
• If they are a phrase, it’s usually pushed to the end of the sentence

Forming Adverbs

Adverbs are constructed from adjectives. So start with an adjective.

Because adjectives end in all sorts of letters, however, there are many rules for this. Remember that these rules merely exist to make the word easier to read and speak. If a word sounds fine using just the first rule, it’s probably fine.

In most cases, add a -ly behind it and you’re done.

The adjective ends in an -y? Replace it with an -i. (We’ve seen this exact rule many times now, throughout this course.)

The adjective ends in -able, -ible or -le? Replace the -e with an -i.

The adjective ends in -ic? Add -ally at the end.

Irregular adverbs

Some common adjectives stay the same as adverbs.

Early, fast, hard, high, late, near, straight, and wrong

And finally, a very common irregular adverb. The adverb of good is well.

Comparative and Superlative Adverb

Adverbs end in -ly. By now, you know English likes replacing that “y” with an “i” when something comes after it.

And indeed, you can do that with the comparative and superlative form. Add -ier and -iest to the end.

However! This leads to long or clunky words with many syllables. As such, the most common (and better) approach is to use the other rule for comparing: just place more and most in front.

Very short adverbs, especially the irregular ones that don’t change, are always formed in the usual way:

Relative Adverbs

Adverbs can help glue a short sentence to another one.

The full way to write this uses (in/at/on/for) + which.

Often, you can shorten such a sentence. Do this with relative adverbs: where, when or why.

If the glue sentence is simple enough, you can leave it out entirely.

Interrogative Adverbs

We’ve talked about the big questions: who, what, where, when, why and how.

Now we can give them a name: interrogative adverbs.

• Place them at the beginning of a sentence.
• Switch the subject and verb
• And you have a question!

The word how is a bit abstract. There are four typical ways in which it is used:

• When it means in what way. => How do you repair a bike?
• To ask about degree/severeness of an adjective => How old do you think he is?
• To ask about degree/frequency of an action => How fast did he run!?
• With much and many to ask about quantity => How much time did you put into this assignment?

English remarks, again

Early on, I mentioned the tendency of English to include (opinionated) remarks. Just a tiny word or sentence, surrounded by a comma (,) or dash (–), to give some judgement or viewpoint on a sentence.

Now we can complete the circle on this. They are commenting adverbs. They come at the start or the end. Sometimes, but rarely, they appear directly around the main verb.

Adverbials

When an adverb is a phrase or clause, some like to call it an adverbial. (To make this distinction clear.)

In this case, it has the same function: modify the sentence. But it’s a phrase because we simply need multiple words to do so.

You can turn the order around. “When she was young, she played soccer.” But this isn’t recommended. Because it makes the sentence harder to read: the subject + verb now come at the end. They are the most important parts and should be communciated early!

Overview

You’ve learned how to modify adjectives into adverbs. You’ve learned where to place them, when they can shorten a sentence, and when you can omit them altogether.

All that’s left is learning the types of adverbs available. Again, see this as a reference. Don’t try to memorize this. Just skip through, come back when you’re looking for a specific word to use.

This doesn’t list all adverbs. (That’d be impossible. There are thousands and thousands of them!) It lists the different groups, the common words in them, and where to place them in a sentence.

Adverbs of Place

Most common are here (something nearby) and there (something far away).

Those are usually placed at the end of the sentence or after prepositions. When put at the front, they are an exclamation or receive emphasis.

In the Pronouns chapter we also discussed the important everywhere, anywhere, somewhere and nowhere.

In the Prepositions chapter you already saw them categorized by time, place and movement. So it’s not surprising that some prepositions can be an adverb as well!

Adverbs of Time

There are three adverbs of time: how long > how often > when (exactly).

If you use multiple, they should always be in that order.

Time follows place in a sentence. Unless you intend to emphasize one of them. (Which is used in poems, novels or speeches.) But keep it simple and straightforward otherwise.

How long: often, never, always, seldom, rarely, frequently, regularly, usually, once a week, monthly, …

How often: all day, for weeks, for years, since Tuesday, …

When: yesterday, tomorrow, today, later, now, last year, next year, …

The word yet is used in questions and negative sentences: if something hasn’t happened, but is expected to happen.

The word still expresses continuity. It is mostly used in positive sentences. It is placed before the main verb. But if the main verb is an auxiliary verb, it comes after it.

Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner tell how something happened. “Manner” is another word for “the way the action happens”. Most adverbs that modify a verb fall in this category.

For example: well, quickly, patiently, greedily, softly, beautifully, angrily, roughly, …

You can always place an adverb of manner at the end of a sentence, so it modifies the action of the whole sentence.

But …

• If the sentence is long, or has many verbs, place the adverb behind the verb to which it applies. This avoids confusion.
• If the sentence has an object (direct or indirect), place the adverb in front of that. Again, to avoid confusion.

Some adverbs always come immediately after the verb: well, badly, hard and fast.

Adverbs of Degree

These tell us about the intensity or degree of an action. They are placed directly before whatever they are modifying.

The adverb very makes an adverb or adjective stronger. The word too says there is a problem (things have gone too far). The word very simply states a fact.

Not very is used to reverse this: instead of making something stronger, it makes it weaker.

The adverb too can have two very different meanings:

• Same as also. Placed at the end => I like swimming too!
• Same as excessively. Place before what it modifies => Am I too fat?

The adverb enough comes after what it modifies. It means something like “to the necessary degree”.

This can also express a quantity: as much/many as necessary.

It is often followed by for someone, for something or “to”+infinitive.

Adverbs of Certainty

Express how certain we feel about an event or action.

• Always put before the main verb.
• Unless that verb is some form of to be.

These are: certainly, definitely, probably, undoubtedly, surely