Adverb forms; adverbs and adjectives easily confused; comparative and superlative adverbs; modifiers; adverb position
CONTEXT LISTENING
You are going to hear the beginning of a radio commentary on a football match. Before you listen, think about what you can see and hear at a match.
1. Tick the words you think you might hear.
ball
chair
goal
ground
helmet
loudly
peacefully
quickly
racket
scored
shyly
stadium
spectators
whistle
Listen and check if you were right. Number the words in the order you hear them and cross out the ones you don’t hear.
2. Listen again and fill in the gaps. Stop the recording when you need to.
And finally the players are coming onto the pitch.
There were such terrible traffic jams ________ that the match is starting _______ .
Most of the spectators have been waiting ________ since two o’clock.
As the players come out they’re cheering ________ .
Rossi has the ball and is running ________ down the pitch.
He’s fallen ________ .
He’s so experienced in these kinds of conditions that he ________ falls.
Parker is playing incredibly ________ .
________ he scored the winning goal.
It’s ________ Parker who scores that important goal.
All the words you have filled in are adverbs or adverbial phrases. They tell us about when,
where, how or how often something happened. Write them in the correct place in the table below.
There are four adverbs in Exercise 1. Which column do they go in?
Log into Learnclick to do the exercise and check your answers.
GRAMMAR
Adverb forms
Adjectives (happy) tell us about a noun.
Adverbs (happily) tell us about a verb, an adjective or another adverb.
Adverbs can give us information about
time (when?)
place (where?)
manner (how?)
frequency (how often?)
Sometimes we use a phrase instead of one word:
This morning I feel happy because the weather is pleasantly warm. Some children are playing happily in the street and a blackbird is singing very beautifully.
Most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective:
Sad ➞ sadly
Safe ➞ safely
Hopeful ➞ hopefully
There is a spelling change in adjectives ending -y or -able/-ible when they become adverbs:
angry ➞ angrily
miserable ➞ miserably
An adjective ending in -ly (friendly, likely, lively, lonely, lovely, silly, ugly) cannot be made into an adverb. We have to use an adverbial phrase instead:
She started the interview in a friendly manner.
He laughed in a silly way.
Adverbs and adjectives easily confused
Some adjectives and adverbs have the same form. Some common ones are:
Fast
Early
Hard
Late
daily
He caught the early train. (adjective)
He always arrives early. (adverb)
She’s a hard worker. (adjective)
She works hard. (adverb)
The bus is always late. (adjective)
I got home late. (adverb)
My daily coffee costs £2.50. (adjective)
I swim daily. (adverb)
! Hard and hardly are both adverbs but they have different meanings.
Hardly means ‘almost not’ and it is often used with ever and any.
It can go in various positions in the sentence:
She hardly noticed when he came into the room. (= she almost didn’t notice)
I had hardly finished my breakfast when they arrived. (= only just)
Rachel is hardly ever absent. (= almost never)
There was hardly anyone in the cinema. (= almost nobody)
Hardly any of the children could read. (= almost none of them)
Late and lately are both adverbs but they have different meanings.
Lately means ‘recently’:
I haven’t read any good books lately.
! The adverb for good is well, but well can also be an adjective which means the opposite of ill:
It was a good concert. The musicians played well. (= adverb)
I had a bad headache yesterday but I’m well today. (= adjective)
Some verbs are followed by adjectives, not adverbs (➢ see Lesson on adjectives).
Comparative and superlative adverbs
Most adverbs use more or less to make comparatives and the most or the least to make superlatives:
My brother speaks Italian more fluently than me.
I speak Italian less fluently than my brother does.
Of all the students, Maria speaks English the most fluently.
Adverbs without -ly make comparatives and superlatives in the same way as short adjectives (➢ see Lesson on adjectives):
hard ➞ harder ➞ hardest
high ➞ higher ➞ highest
late ➞ later ➞ latest
I work hard, my sister works harder than I do but Alex works the hardest.
! Note also:
early ➞ earlier ➞ earliest (not more early / the most early)
Some comparative and superlative adverbs are irregular:
well ➞ better ➞ best
badly ➞ worse ➞ worst
far ➞ farther/further ➞ farthest/furthest
Adverbs use the same comparative structures as adjectives:
I can’t add up as quickly as you can.
They arrived later than us.
Modifying adverbs and adjectives
Some adverbs are used to change the strength of adjectives or other adverbs.
He dances extremely well.
The weather was very hot.
He spoke to her rather fiercely.
The house was quite old.
Some adjectives (e.g. perfect, impossible, excellent) can only be strengthened with adverbs like
completely
absolutely
totally
entirely:
This crossword puzzle is completely impossible. (not very impossible)
Adverb position
The most common position for most adverbs is after the verb, or after the object of the verb if there is one.
He worked hard
He packed his suitcase carefully.
However, they may also go before the verb or at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis:
He packed his suitcase carefully. (end-position)
He carefully packed his suitcase. (mid-position)
Carefully, he packed his suitcase. (front-position)
! An adverb does not usually go between a verb and its object:
not He packed carefully his suitcase.
If there are several adverbs and/or adverbial phrases in the end-position, we usually put them in this order: how? where? when?
Frequency adverbs (which tell us how often) are usually in the mid-position before a single word verb:
I usually travel by train.
but after am/is/are/was/were:
I am often late.
If the verb has two or more parts, the frequency adverb usually goes after the first part:
I have never been to this part of town before.
Adverbs can sometimes go in the front-position to give special emphasis to how, when or how often:
Angrily, she stormed out of the room.
Sometimes we shop at a supermarket, but usually we go to the market.
Opinion adverbs, which tell us about the speaker’s attitude to the situation, usually go in the front-position, often followed by a comma:
Luckily, we found the money which I thought I’d lost.
Actually, I don’t agree with what you said.
In fact, the weather was better than we’d expected.
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