English Grammar 101: Understanding Adverbs

An adverb generally modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. They are very useful tools for emphasis – while a verb tells us about the doing of something, an adverbs tells us how it is done. Let’s look at some examples:

They arrived early (modifies verb)
Jane is an extremely clever girl (modifies adjective)
John walked rather slowly into the room (modifies another adverb)

Most adverbs consist of adjectives followed by the suffix “ly” – quickly, willingly, cleverly, rightly. However, not all adverbs follow this rule. The words how, hard, fast and well are also adverbs. Note that both hard and fast can be both adjectives and adverbs, depending on how they are used in the sentence:

She runs fast (adverb).
She had a fast run (adjective).
He hit him hard (adverb).
His head took a hard knock (adjective).

There are several kinds of adverbs:

1. Adverbs of Time: already, today, after, before
2. Place: here, there, down, away
3. Manner: politely, clearly, well
4. Frequency: always, often, daily
5. Affirmation and negative: yes, no
6. Degree and quantity: quite, a little, a lot, many, once

Where, When, Why and How are all adverbs and are used in two ways: as interrogative adverbs and relative adverbs. Again, let’s look at some example sentences.

Interrogative adverbs

Where does he sit? He sits here.
When did you arrive? I arrived yesterday.
Why did she go there? She went there to see him.
How does John write? He writes neatly.

There adverbs all produce what can be called “open questions” and are very useful for gaining detailed answers to questions.

Relative adverbs

This is the place where we live. (Where)
He knows the time when he is arriving. (When)
I don’t know why the manager resigned. (Why)
Tell me how she succeeded. (How)

Adverbs also include what are known as comparative and superlative words. These are basically words that compare with other words and are used in negative or positive ways:

Well – better – best
Bad – worse – worst

Jane reads well. – Positive
Sue reads better than Jane. – Comparative
Kitty reads best of all. - Superlative

The words “quick” and “slow” are often misused as adverbs, when they are in fact adjectives. So, the now-famous slogan of “Get Rich Quick” is incorrect, and should read “Get Rich Quickly”. The same goes for the road sign “Go Slow”, which, as you now know, should read “Go Slowly”. As you can see, there are some glaring errors when it comes to adverb use!