Adverbs

 

Adverbs: uses

Adverbs are one of the four major word classes, along with nouns, verbs and adjectives. We use adverbs to add more information about a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a clause or a whole sentence and, less commonly, about a noun phrase.

Can you move it carefully? It’s fragile.

Quickly! We’re late.

She swims really well.

Don’t go so fast.

You have to turn it clockwise.

Come over here.

Actually, I don’t know her.

I haven’t seen them recently.

The bathroom’s upstairs on the left.

 

Adverbs: meanings and functions

Adverbs have many different meanings and functions. They are especially important for indicating the time, manner, place, degree and frequency of something.

time	I never get up early at the weekends.
manner	Walk across the road carefully!
place	When we got there, the tickets had sold out.
degree	It’s rather cold, isn’t it?
frequency	I’m always losing my keys.

Adverbs: types

 

Time, place and manner adverbs (early, there, slowly)

Time adverbs

Time adverbs tell us about when something happens.

already	lately	still	tomorrow
early	now	soon	yesterday
finally	recently	today	yet

Have you seen Laurie today?

I’d prefer to leave early.

I went to the cinema on my own recently.

There’s been an increase in house burglary lately.

See also:

• Adverb phrases
• Already, still or yet?

Place adverbs

Place adverbs tell us about where something happens or where something is.

There was somebody standing nearby.

Is that your scarf there?

You go upstairs and do your homework. I’ll come up in a minute.

Manner adverbs

Manner adverbs tell us about the way something happens or is done.

accurately	beautifully	expertly	professionally
anxiously	carefully	greedily	quickly
badly	cautiously	loudly	quietly

Manner adverbs are often formed from adjectives by adding -ly:

She spoke very loudly. We could all hear what she was saying.

We waited anxiously by the phone.

We walked up the stairs very quietly because Mum and Dad were asleep.

Some common manner adverbs have the same form as adjectives and they have similar meanings (e.g. fast, right, wrong, straight, tight).

adjective	adverb
I was never a fast swimmer	Driving fast is dangerous
All of your answers were wrong.	People always spell my name wrong.
Is that the right time?	That builder never does anything right!
My hair is straight.	Let’s go straight to the airport.

Degree adverbs (slightly) and focusing adverbs (generally)

Degree and focusing adverbs are the most common types of modifiers of adjectives and other adverbs. Degree adverbs express degrees of qualities, properties, states, conditions and relations. Focusing adverbs point to something.

Degree adverbs

absolutely	enough	perfectly	somewhat
a (little) bit	entirely	pretty	terribly
a lot	extremely	quite	too
almost	fairly	rather	totally
awfully	highly	remarkably	utterly
completely	lots	slightly	very

Mary will be staying a bit longer. (a bit longer = for a little more time)

It all happened pretty quickly.

She was quite surprised they came, actually.

It was £3.52 if you want to be totally accurate.

Focusing adverbs

especially	just	mainly	particularly
generally	largely	only	simply

I just wanted to ask you what you thought.

I wouldn’t particularly like to move to a modern house.

See also:

• Adverbs

 

Evaluative adverbs (surprisingly) and viewpoint adverbs (personally)

We put some adverbs outside the clause. They modify the whole sentence or utterance. Evaluative and viewpoint adverbs are good examples of this:

The electric car, surprisingly, does not really offer any advantages over petrol cars.(evaluative)

Personally, I think the show was great. (viewpoint)

 

Linking adverbs (then, however)

Linking adverbs show a relationship between two clauses or sentences (e.g. a sequence in time, cause and effect, contrast between two things):

I left my house in the morning [sequence]then I went to pick up Leanne at her house.

[cause]We talked until the early hours and [effect]consequently I overslept the next morning. (the result of the late night is that I was late the next morning)

The sun will be shining in France. [contrast]However, heavy rain is expected in Spain.

Warning:

We can use then and consequently to join clauses or sentences. We usually use but not however to connect two clauses in the same sentence:

There was no room for them but they got on the train.

There was no room for them. However, they got on the train.