Welcome to englishgrammarspot. This lesson
is about adverbs. Take a look at these sentences
She sings beautifully. He felt poorly after he fell from the stairs.
The words that are underlined are
adverbs. In this lesson
I'm going to show you what adverbs exactly are, the different types of
adverbs,
how to form an adverbs, how to place an adverbs in a sentence
and the exceptions.
I'm going to take you through the most common exceptions,
not all. Now what are adverbs?
Adverbs add extra information to a verb.
For example: He arrived home safely. Safely here says something about
arriving we could also say he arrived home
early and here early would be an adverb.
It also comments on an adjective.
Remember an adjective says someting about a noun.
She wore a brightly coloured dress.
Dress in this sentence is a noun.
Coloured here is an adjective because it says something about the dress
but brightly says something about the way it was coloured.
We could also say she that she wore a pink coloured dress
and then pink would be an adverb. It also says something about
other at adverbs. For example: She did her job fairly well.
Well says something about the manner
in which she did her job and fairly says something about
well, we could also say she did her job reasonably
well. An adverbs also says something about a
sentences or a clause. Honestly I feel very ill.
Here the adverbs comments on the entire sentence
there are many different types of adverbs,
First there are adverbs of manner,
these adverbs say someting about how it happens.
He looked at me carefully. We could also say he looked at me slowly
it says something about the way he looked at me.
The museum will slowly go bankrupt
no quickly, slowly. He plays football well
There are also
adverbs of place, where does it happen.
My keys must be somewhere. Here somewhere
is an adverb. There they are or
here they are. These are adverbs.
We had to travel quite far.
There are also adverbs of time when doesn't happen.
Finaly, which means in the end,
he managed to grow a beard. He eventually
came home. He rang her immediately
after he had heard the news.
There are also adverbs of frequency, how often does it happen.
I always brush my teeth before going to bed.
She's often late for work.
My aunt never rings me on my birthday.
Other types of adverbs of frequency are,
sometimes or regularly.
Now we also have
adverbs of degree in what way does it happen.
He arrived home fairly late. This cake can be made
quite easily and they are definitely
right.
Finally sentence adverbs, they comment on an entire sentence or a
clause. Frankly I'm fed up with you.
The child clearly wanted some ice cream.
He loved her very much obviously. Usually but not always as you can see in
the second sentence,
these adverbs can be found at the beginning
or at the end of a sentence. Now how do we form an adverb?
Please note that there is a clear
difference in form between an adverb and an adjective.
Remember an adjective says something about a noun.
To form an adverb, we usually take
an adjective and we add -ly
to this adjective. We quickly packed our
bags and left.
They don't normally sell these shoes. So quick and normal are
adjectives and now we've added -ly to them
and now they've become adverbs. We need to pay attention to
adverbs in a -y. For example easy and
happy here the -y becomes an 'i' for
example they passed the exams easily
and we are happily married. Now please note:
that there is dry/dryly and shy/ shyly.
this is basically because these
adjectives only have one
syllable. We also need to pay attention to
adjectives ending 'ic',
for example specific or terrific.
Here we add 'ally.'
For example: They specifically asked for a room with a view
He won the match terrifically.
Please note that it is: public and publicly.
So it's an exception.
Now where do we place adverbs?
We also need to pay attantion to adverbs of frequency so
always, never, sometimes, regularly etc.
these adverbs of frequency become before the main verb
or after a form of 'to be.' For example
He often works late.
She is never in time for dinner. 'Is' is a form of
'to be' so we place the adverb after 'is.'
Now pay attention to the following sentence: They can always call me
in times of need. Here we have two verbs we have
'can' and 'call' but since call here is
the main verb, the main action
we put the adverb in front of the main verb.
For all other adverbs, they can be placed anywhere in a sentence.
But adverbs of place become before adverbs of time.
We basically say: place before time.
For example I searched for my diary
everywhere yesterday. Everywhere
is an adverbs and yesterday is an adverb.
But since everywhere denotes place,
and yesterday denotes time, we place yesterday
at the end of the sentence. Obviously you could also say:
Yesterday, I searched for my diary everywhere.
A time can eithet be at the beginning of a sentence or
at the end of a sentence.
Now let's take a look at some of the exceptions some adjectives don't
change when used as an adverb.
Yearly, daily, weekly etc.
early but then again it already looks like an adverb.
liitle
long, fast, next.
These are some of the adjectives that don't change, there are more,
I have selected the most common ones.
You also need to pay attention to the words good and well.
They have the same meaning, but
good is an adjective as you can see in he is a
swimmer. Good says something about a noun: swimmer.
He swims well and here we use the adverb,
because it says something about the way he swims
the verb. Some adjectives change in meaning when we add '-ly.'
So fair means
honest but fairly means reasonably.
hard as in tough but hardly
almost none. Late as in
not early but lately as in recently,
Near as in close and nearly as in
almost. So we cannot change
these simply into an adverb.
You need to pay good attention when adding something
to an adjective.
Certain verbs that we call copulas require an adjective
not an adverb. These verbs
these are the most common ones, so not all: to appear,
to be, to become, to feel,
get, to keep, to seem to smell,
to sound, to taste. Please note that I have put an '*'
after, to get, to smell, to taste
because these can also be
common verbs. So they're not always copulas.
So pay attention to these sentences
This food tastes great.
and here great is an adjective,
because it says something about the taste
but if we say he tasted the food carefully
here it says something about the verb itself
in the way he tasted it.
So when he says the food tastes great,
great says something about the food but when we say
he tasted the food carefully, we say something about the way
he tasted it, the verb.
I thank you for your attention for regular updates please subscribe to
youtube.com/englishgrammarspot
or go to www.englishgrammarspot.com