Adverbs

Adverbs

Adverbs are words that modify, or describe, other words. They can modify verbs, as in, "He speaks softly." Or they can modify adjectives, as in, "This room is delightfully old-fashioned." Or they can even modify other adverbs, as in, "He walked very slowly."

You can turn many adjectives into adverbs by adding ly to the end, as in quietly, quickly, slowly, or gladly. But be careful! This isn't true 100% of the time. For example, this doesn't work for adjectives that already end in y, such as happy. The adverbial form of happy is happily.

Adverbs can come at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. You can say, "Quickly, she ran down the street," or "She ran quickly down the street" or "She ran down the street quickly." However, you should never put an adverb between a verb and its object. You can say, "I hungrily ate an apple," but not "I ate hungrily an apple."