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2.2.- Adjectives vs. adverbs.

As you already know from session 1 adjectives are used to describe nouns, and they are placed in front of the noun they are describing:

  • A luxurious office.
  • An idyllic scenery.
  • A friendly atmosphere.
Grupo de personas escuchando y hablando.

Think about it

But, what's the difference between an adjective and an adverb? When do you use an adjective and when do you use an adverb? Look at the following examples and try to answer the questions:

  • The manager speaks perfect English.
  • The manager speaks English perfectly.

Sometimes you are not sure when to use an adverb or an adjective. So look at the following characteristics and it will be easy for you to establish a difference between an adjective or an adverb:

  • An adjective:
    • It is used before a noun or after verbs like be, look, feel, sound, taste, smell, appear, seem.
      • She'll be excited when you tell her you are going on a business trip to Paris.
      • What the restaurant staff recommended looked awful.
      • Our conference room smelled bad so we made a complaint to the manager.
  • An adverb:
    • If adjectives are used to describe nouns, adverbs are used to tell us about a verb. It describes how something is done.
      • The manager speaks English perfectly. How does he speak English?
      • As the weather was depressing and it rained heavily we couldn't leave the hotel. How did it rain?
      • Last summer, our assistants behaved angrily in the coference. How did they behave?

As you can see from the examples most adverbs are made by adding –ly to an adjective:

Adverbs derived from adjectives
Adjective Adverb
Sad. Sadly.
Serious. Seriously.
Perfect. Perfectly.
Quiet. Quietly.
Simple. Simply.
Terrible. Terribly.
Heavy. Heavily.
Easy. Easily.
Careful. Carefully.
Safe. Safely.
Bad. Badly.

A piece of advice

You should be careful with the spelling rules when adding –ly to adjectives:

  1. If an adjective ends in –y, it changes to –i before the suffix –ly: Easily, Heavily.
  2. If an adjective ends in –e, we keep –e before the suffix –ly: Safely.
  3. If an adjective ends in –le, the final –e turns into –y: Terribly, Simply.
  4. If an adjective ends in –l, it gets doubled when adding –ly: Carefully.
  • There are words ending in –ly which are not adverbs, they are adjectives like the following ones:

    friendly, lovely, lively, lonely.

  • There are adverbs which do not end in –ly:
    • Well is an irregular adverb which comes from the adjective good.
    • Fast, Hard, Late, High can be both adjectives and adverbs.
    • The words lately and hardly are adverbs in English, but they are not derived from the adjectives late or hard respectively.
    • Lately means recently.

    • Hardly means scarcely, barely.

  • Adverbs can also be used to modify adjectives or other adverbs:

    • This bed and breakfast is surprisingly quiet. (adverb + adjective).
    • The room service in incredibly quickly. (adverb + adverb).

Ejercicio Resuelto

Click to read the Spanish translation.