Read this carefully

Did you read the headline carefully? That right there is an adverb.

Adverbs, like nouns, adjectives and verbs are part of our everyday speech. We use them in almost every sentence we speak and yet we may not realize it.

If you have just started learning English, you might be a little overwhelmed by everything that is coming your way. So let’s take it slow. Read the next few sentences to get a better understanding of what adverbs are.

Looking at a few examples will make you see in which cases adverbs can be used.

“She drove the car slowly to the end of the road.”

“She sang merrily.”

“It was raining heavily.”

“She smiled at her students happily.”

Now before we ask you to try and identify adverbs in the above sentences, let us explain to you what adverbs are.

Adverbs are words that describe adjectives or verbs with a simple of addition of ‘ly’ at the end of the word. For example: In the above mentioned sentences, we said, “She drove the car slowly to the end of the road.” The adverb in the sentence is ‘slowly’. It is used in answer to the question ‘how’. How did she drive the car? She drove the car slowly to the end of the road. Most adverbs are used as an answer to the question ‘How?’

Please keep in mind, though, that not all words ending with ‘ly’ become adverbs. For example, ‘lovely’, is not an adverb. In a sentence like ‘He ran fast’, the word ‘fast’ is an adverb. It does not have ‘ly’ ending.

We have provided you with a small exercise to help you better grasp the meaning of adverbs.

·         He entered the room ___ since the baby was sleeping. (quiet, quietly)

·         I have ___ any money. (hard, hardly)

·         He lived very ___ with his wife for many years. (happy, happily)

·         Try to speak as ___ as you can. (clear, clearly)

We hope this helped you understand adverbs. To learn adverbs better, enroll for the English language course at ELTIS!