Many native English speakers are starting to use adjectives where traditionally we need an adverb. I've been working a lot lately (= an adverb meaning 'recently').He came late (= adverb, meaning 'not on time').I'm late (= adjective, meaning 'not on time').There is also an adverb 'lately', which means 'recently'. I have hardly any money (= I have almost no money).She hardly works (= she does almost no work).'Hardly' is also an adverb, but it means 'almost nothing' or 'almost none'. She works hard (= adverb, meaning 'with a lot of effort').The table is hard (= adjective, meaning 'not soft' or 'difficult').'Hard' is both an adjective and an adverb. Of course, we also use 'good' as an adjective. He did the work well ('well' is an adverb meaning 'in a good way').My mother is well ('well' is an adjective that means 'healthy and fine').'Well' can be confusing because it is both the adverb form of 'good', and an adjective that means 'healthy and fine'. These are friendly, lovely, lonely, lively, and silly.
There are also some adjectives that end in 'ly' and don't have an adverb form.
Early (adjective): She was early for the meeting.Gently (adverb): He stroked the cat gently.Happy (adjective): She looks very happy.If the adjective ends in 'le', we drop 'e' and add 'y'. If the adjective ends in 'y', we change 'y' to 'i' and add 'ly'. Quiet (adjective): This is a quiet room.Carefully (adverb): She put the glasses down carefully.Careful (adjective): He is always careful.Normally, we make an adverb by adding 'ly' to an adjective. We can replace 'look' with 'are' and the sentence still makes sense. (Here we are using 'look' as a nking verb, to give more information about the person. (Here we are talking about the action of looking and using 'look' as a normal verb, so we use an adverb to describe the way of looking.) He looked tiredly at the dirty kitchen.We can replace 'smells' with 'is' and the sentence still makes sense. (Here we are using 'smell' as a linking verb, to describe the soup. (Here we are talking about the action of smelling and using 'smell' as a normal verb, so we need an adverb.) If it does, the verb is being used as a linking verb and so needs an adjective, not an adverb. One test is to replace the verb with the same form of 'be' and see if the sentence still makes sense. However, this can be tricky as some verbs can be used as both normal verbs and as linking verbs. It's important to remember to use an adjective after a linking verb. We make the comparative and superlative forms of adverbs by using 'more / most'. I walked slowly ('slowly' tells us about the verb 'walk').They are often (but not always) made by adding 'ly' to the adjective. She is the tallest person in the class.Īdverbs are used to describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.You can read more about comparatives and superlatives here. We make the comparative and superlative of adjectives by adding either '-er / -est' or using 'more / most'. (Linking verbs are verbs like 'be', 'become' and 'seem' which are not actions but instead link the subject to an adjective, noun or phrase that gives us more information about the subject. Adjectives can come before nouns or after linking verbs. We use adjectives to describe nouns and pronouns. Try an exercise about adjectives and adverbs here.
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