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:

I walked slowly. -- “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’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 Adverb

claro clear claramente clearlylento slow lentamente slowlyrápido quick rápidamente quicklyfácil easy fácilmente easilyeficaz effective eficazmente effectivelytriste sad tristemente 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:

lent

If the adjective ends in anything else, you just add mente:

tristefácil

mente

mente

mente

oa

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!

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