We use adverbs to add more information about a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a sentence.
Use of adverbs
- to modify verbs
Our football team played badly last week.
- to modify adjectives
It was an extremely good weather on Saturday.
- to modify adverbs
The rangers played extremely badly last Friday.
- to modify quantities
There were quite a lot of people there last night.
- to modify sentences
Unfortunately, they did not manage to get there on time.
Adverbs have many different functions. They are particularly important for indicating the time, manner, place, degree, and frequency of something.
Forming adverbs
We can frequently form adverbs from adjectives. This can often be done by simply adding -ly.
If the adjective ends in -y, change -y to -i. Then add -ly:
- happy – happily
exception: shy – shyly
If the adjective ends in -le, the adverb ends in -ly:
- terrible – terribly
- responsible – responsibly
- simple – simply
If the adjective ends in -e, then add -ly:
- safe – safely
Some adjectives are irregular:
