Adjectives and adverbs (1) (quick/quickly)

Adjectives and adverbs (1) (quick/quickly)

A. Look at these examples:

* Our holiday was too short - the time went very quickly.

* The driver of the car was seriously injured in the accident.

Quickly and seriously are adverbs. Many adverbs are made from an adjective + -1y:

adjective: quick serious careful quiet heavy bad

adverb: quickly seriously carefully quietly heavily badly

For spelling, see Appendix 6.

Not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. Some adjectives end in -ly too, for example:

friendly lively elderly lonely silly lovely

B. Adjective or adverb?

#1 Adjectives (quick/careful etc.) tell us about a noun. We use adjectives before nouns and after some

verbs, especially be:

* Tom is a careful driver. (not 'a carefully driver')

* We didn't go out because of the heavy rain.

* Please be quiet.

* I was disappointed that my exam results were so bad.

We also use adjectives after the verbs look/feel/sound etc. (see Unit 98D):

* Why do you always look so serious?

#2 Adverbs (quickly/carefully etc.) tell us about a verb. An adverb tells us how somebody does something

or how something happens:

* Tom drove carefully along the narrow road. (not 'drove careful')

* We didn't go out because it was raining heavily. (not 'raining heavy')

* Please speak quietly. (not 'speak quiet')

* I was disappointed that I did so badly in the exam. (not 'did so bad')

Why do you never take me seriously?

Compare:

* She speaks perfect English.(adjective + noun)

* She speaks English perfectly.(verb + object + adverb)

Compare these sentences with look:

* Tom looked sad when I saw him. (= he seemed sad, his expression was sad)

* Tom looked at me sadly. (= he looked at me in a sad way)

C. We also use adverbs before adjectives and other adverbs. For example:

reasonably cheap (adverb + adjective)

terribly sorry (adverb + adjective)

incredibly quickly (adverb + adverb)

* It's a reasonably cheap restaurant and the food is extremely good.

* Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to push you. (not 'terrible sorry')

* Maria learns languages incredibly quickly.

* The examination was surprisingly easy.

You can also use an adverb before a past participle (injured/organised/written etc.)

* Two people were seriously injured in the accident. (not 'serious injured')

* The meeting was very badly organised.