Download Adverbs - Gordon State College

Adverbs
Making adverbs is easy, easy, easy. The biggest
problem is that students don’t seem to know how
to use adverbs in English.
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other
adverbs:
-- “Slowly” modifies the verb.
I walked how? Slowly.
I walked very slowly. – “Very” modifies the adverb
“slowly.”
I am very short.
– “Very” modifies the adjective
“short.”
I walked slowly.
I’ve had students write sentences like
Yo soy fácilmente
which translates
I am easily.
Does that make sense to you?
It does you no good to learn how to form adverbs if
you can’t use them. They’re used in Spanish
just like they are in English, so if you can’t do
them in Spanish, I suggest you go find an
English grammar book.
Adjective
claro
lento
rápido
fácil
eficaz
triste
Adverb
clear
slow
quick
easy
effective
sad
claramente
lentamente
rápidamente
fácilmente
eficazmente
tristemente
clearly
slowly
quickly
easily
effectively
sadly
It should be perfectly obvious how you make an adverb from an adjective:
If the adjective ends in an –o, you change the –o to an –a and add
mente:
mente
lent o
a
If the adjective ends in anything else, you just add mente:
mente
tristemente
fácil
And that’s all you need to know about forming adverbs.
There’s just one little oddity about Spanish adverbs that
you need to know but that doesn’t occur very often:
If you have two or more adverbs ending in –mente in a row,
you only put –mente on the last one:
Corrimos fácil y rápidamente.
You leave the first one in its adjective form. BUT it has to
end in –a, not –o, since –a is what you would attach
–mente to if you had to use –mente:
Corrimos rápida (NOT rápido) y fácilmente.
And that’s it!
Click here to go to your homework.