7.1.3: Adverbs

This lesson includes slides for classroom presentation.

Reading Exercise

Read the sentences below and identify the adverbs. Then discuss with your class. The adverbs are giving more information (modifying) about certain words or phrases in the sentence. Which ones?

• San Diego has a very diverse population
• Immigrants to San Diego don't always speak English
• Fortunately, they are learning English
• The students in this class are learning English very quickly

Answers

• The adverb is "very," it is modifying "diverse"
• The adverb is "always," it is modifying "speak"
• The adverb is "fortunately," it is modifying "they are learning English"
• The adverb is "very quickly," it is modifying "are learning"

Why Use Adverbs?

Compare these sentences. Which sentence in each pair gives more information? What kind of information do we learn?

• Immigrants are learning English
• Fortunately, immigrants are learning English

• The students in this class are learning English
• The students in this class are learning English very quickly

• San Diego has nice beaches
• San Diego has incredibly nice beaches

Answers

• The second sentence in the first pair gives more information, we learn the author's opinion about the sentence
• The second sentence in the second pair gives more information, we learn how the students are learning
• The second sentence in the third pair gives more information, we learn that the beaches are not just nice but incredibly nice

Read the list of phrases below. What are the parts of speech of the words/phrases that are modified?

• Very diverse
• Always speak
• Fortunately, they are learning English
• Are learning very quickly
• Very quickly

Answers

• "Diverse" is an adjective
• "Speak" is a verb
• "They are learning English" is a clause
• "Are learning" is a verb
• "Quickly" is an adverb

From the examples, we can say an adverb can modify a verb, a clause, an adjective, or another adverb

Adverbs of Frequency

As we learned in Chapter 1, adverbs of frequency are used to tell how often something happens. These adverbs are usually used with simple present or simple past verbs.

This chart provides a review of adverbs of frequency in order of decreasing frequency, from "always" indicating 100% frequency to "never" indicating 0% frequency.

Adverb	Meaning	Example Sentence
Always	100% of the time	She always arrives early.
Almost always	About 95-99% of the time	He almost always finishes his work on time.
Usually	About 90-94% of the time	I usually go for a run in the morning.
Often	About 70-89% of the time	He often forgets his keys.
Sometimes	About 30-69% of the time	Sometimes I eat out for lunch.
Occasionally	About 10-29% of the time	I occasionally drink coffee.
Rarely	About 1-9% of the time	He rarely watches TV
Seldom	About 1-9% of the time	She seldom goes to the gym.
Hardly ever	Almost never	They hardly ever miss a deadline.
Almost never	About 1-5% of the time	He almost never arrives late.
Never	0% of the time	I never drink alcohol.

Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner answer the question "how." Adverbs of manner modify verbs and usually come after the verb.

This chart provides examples of some common adverbs of manner along with example sentences:

Adverb	Meaning	Example Sentence
Quickly	At a high speed	He quickly finished his homework and went to bed.
Cautiously	With caution or carefulness	She cautiously approached the edge of the cliff.
Carefully	With care or caution	She walked carefully along the narrow path.
Quietly	With little or no noise	The baby slept quietly in her crib.
Loudly	With a high volume or intensity	The music played loudly, waking up the neighbors.
Slowly	At a low speed	The old man walked slowly across the street.

Adverb charts created in ChatGPT

Comment adverbs give the speaker's opinion about the sentence. These adverbs usually come before the sentence and are followed by a comma. Which of the adverbs on the list below can fill in the blank to show the author's opinion about arriving before the concert?

A Note on the Forms of Adverbs

Read the list of adverbs above. What is a common ending for many adverbs (but not all)?

Answer: Many adverbs end with -ly. Sometimes an adverb can be created from an adjective + -ly (e.g. quick, quickly)

Exercise 1:

Underline the verbs and circle the adverbs of manner in the following sentences.

1. The boys laughed loudly at their father’s funny stories.

2. I drive slowly and carefully in heavy traffic.

3. The boy spoke loudly, impolitely, and angrily to his mother when she told him “No.”

4. The beautiful young dancer danced gracefully for the guests at the party.

5. Teachers like it when students write carefully and neatly.

Spelling of -ly Adverb Endings

Usually, to form an Adverb of Manner from an adjective, simply add an ly to the end of the adjective.

Examples:

bad--->badly polite--->politely rude--->rudely

quick--->quickly impolite--->impolitely helpful--->helpfully

fluent _____________ neat _______________ efficient ____________

patient _____________ serious______________ accurate_____________

If an adjective ends in a consonant letter followed by a y, change the y to i and add -ly to form an adverb of manner.

Examples:

busy--->busily easy--->easily noisy--> noisily

Change the following adjectives to adverbs of manner, please.

angry _____________ heavy _____________ crazy ______________

lazy ________________ happy _____________ messy_____________

If an adjective ends in either able or ible, drop the final e and add y to form an adverb of manner. (Remember: able and ible ONLY.)

Examples:

dependable--->dependably reliable--->reliably terrible-->terribly

• Change the following adjectives to adverbs of manner, please.

capable ____________ sensible _____________ horrible _________________

legible _____________ able_______________ responsible ______________

• Usually, when an adjective ends in an ic, add ally to form the adverb of manner.

Examples:

automatic--->automatically heroic--->heroically

• Change the following adjectives to adverbs of manner.

drastic______________ enthusiastic _____________ dramatic _____________

energetic______________ sympathetic _____________ pathetic______________

Exercise 2:

Change the following adjectives to adverbs of manner.

1. reliable ___________________

2. angry _____________________

3. sympathetic _______________

4. comfortable ______________

5. busy ____________________

6. noisy _____________________

7. successful ____________________

8. horrible ____________________

9. heroic ____________________

10. rapid ___________________

Exercise 3:

Change the following adjectives to adverbs of manner.

1. dependable ________________

2. rough ____________________

3. terrible __________________

4. impatient _________________

5. peaceful_________________

6. odd ______________________

7. awful ____________________

8. historic _____________________

9. helpful ___________________

10. quick ___________________

Spelling of -ly Adverbs by Don Bissonnette South Seattle Community College licensed for use under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International.

Videos

Watch this video and this video for more information about adverbs...