3. Paco constantly uses a dictionary (adverbs)

Reflexiona

Imagen de  Samuel Johnson en wikimedia. Dominio público.

A Dictionary of the English Language

Whenever Paco doesn't know the meaning of a word in English he looks it up in a dictionary. The following text is an extract from the Preface to Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language. Read it carefully.

As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessary or common use were spoken before they were written; and while they were unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with great diversity, as we now observe those who cannot read, catch sounds imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavoured to express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed to pronounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as were already vitiated in speech.

Can you recognize the adverbs in the text?

Importante

As you have seen, it is very common for adverbs in English to end in -ly. It is so because this suffix (-ly) is the main one we use in English to form adverbs. How many frequency adverbs do you remember ending in -ly? Usually, generally, normally, regularly, frequently, occasionally, hardly ever and rarely. All of them have been formed by adding suffix -ly to an adjective.

Adjective Suffix Adverb
mere -ly merely
imperfect -ly imperfectly
negligent -ly negligently
Drive slowly

Grammar police

Imagen de Eli Reusch en Flickr. C. C.

Adjective
Suffix Adverb
usual -ly usually
general -ly generally
normal -ly normally
regular -ly regularly
frequent -ly frequently
occasional -ly occasionally
hard -ly hardly
rare -ly rarely

So adverbs are really useful to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs and even clauses or sentences. However, as you may imagine, not all the adverbs belong to the same group. There are many types of adverbs, and this is what we will see next.

Comprueba lo aprendido

Pregunta

Choose the correct adverb to be placed in the following sentences.

1. Paco will _______________ begin his trip round the world.

Respuestas

Shortily

Shortly

Retroalimentación

Pregunta

2. Whenever they play, Paco wins the match ______________.

Respuestas

easily

easyly

Retroalimentación

Pregunta

3. Does Andrés feel _________________ recovered from the exhausting match?

Respuestas

completly

completely

Retroalimentación

Pregunta

4. Sofía is _________________ upset.

Respuestas

understandablely

understandably

Retroalimentación

Pregunta

5. Paco and his friends get on _________________ well.

Respuestas

fantasticly

fantastically

Retroalimentación

Importante

 

 

It is very important that you take into account that:

  1. Not all adverbs end in -ly. In the text, now, first and already are adverbs which have not been formed from adjectives.
  2. There are adverbs that are not formed by adding -ly to the adjective. Some examples are: far (adj. far), fast (adj. fast), hard (adj. hard), high (adj. high), late (adj. late), long (adj. long), low (adj. low) and well (adj. good). E.g.: Sofía can run very far, Paco plays tennis very well.
  3. Not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. Some examples are: costly, cowardly, deadly, friendly, likely, lively, lonely, lovely, silly, ugly and unlikely. All of them are adjectives. E.g.: Paco has a lovely smile, Juan is a lively person.
  4. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and early are both adjectives and adverbs. E.g. It is a daily newspaper (adjective), and This newspaper comes out daily (adverb).

If you doubt if a word is an adverb or not, use a dictionary to check it!

Para saber más

  • Here you will find more easy exercises to distinguish adverbs from adjectives.
  • Finally, if you click here, you will find another exercise to improve the formation of adverbs.

Curiosidad

Samuel Johnson

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Imagen en wikimedia.
Public domain

SAMUEL JOHNSON

 

Samuel Johnson (often referred to as Dr. Johnson) was born in 1709 in Lichfield (England) and died in 1784. He contributed to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Among other reasons he will always be remembered because of the publication after nine years of work of A Dictionary of the English Language (sometimes referred to and published as Johnson's Dictionary) in 1755. His dictionary is frequently considered to be among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language since it was the first attempt to fix the English language.

As you have seen -ly is a suffix to form adverbs from adjectives. But do you know what an adverb is and the types of adverbs there exist in English? This is what we are going to study in the next section.