English Grammar - Kinds of Adverbs (Part 1)

By: Musaadah


You have just learned that adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Another type of describing modifier or word is the adverb. Change, adverbs limit, or alter the words they modify.

1. ADVERBS MODIFY VERBS

She is jogging.

This sentence tells you only that a person is doing an action. If an adverb is added, you will find out how he is jogging, where he is jogging, or when he is jogging.

How is she jogging? She is jogging quickly.
When is she jogging? she is jogging now.
Where is she jogging? she is jogging away.

2. ADVERBS MODIFY ADJECTIVES

In the following sentence, the noun picture is described as beautiful. What part of speech is the word beautiful.

The campers saw a beautiful picture.

Beautiful is an adjective modifying the noun picture. If you want to tell how beautiful it was, you can add something in front of the adjective.

The campers saw a very beautiful picture.
The campers saw a truly beautiful picture.

When a word is added that expresses how beautiful the picture was, or to what extent it was beautiful, that word is called an adverb. Thus very and truly are adverbs modifying the adjective beautiful.

Here are some of the words that can be used as adverbs in front of adjectives:

extremely
somewhat
really
tremendously
particularly
especially
perfectly
unusually
a little completely

3. ADVERBS MODIFY OTHER ADVERBS

Adverbs may also be used to modify other adverbs.

My teacher read quickly.

The adverb quickly modifies the verb read and shows how the my teacher read. By adding another adverb, you can find out how quickly my teacher read, as follows:

How quickly did my teacher read? My teacher read very quickly.

Related Topics:
Kinds of Adverbs (Part 2)
Kinds of Verbs (Part 1)
Kinds of Verbs (Part 2)