Adverbs of Manner

We are going to look at adverbs of manner today. You may remember that adjectives are used to describe nouns. However, adverbs are used to describe verbs or rather, to say how something happens, or how something is done.

For example:

Adjective form: He is a slow driver

Adverb form: He drives slowly

As you can see, to form adverbs of manner we simply add -ly to the adjective.

Quick-quickly

Careful-carefully

Quiet-quietly

Clear-clearly

Easy-easily

Comfortable-Comfortably

Possible-possibly

As you may notice there are some exceptions to the way some adjectives change in order to form adverbs.

If the adjective ends in a -y we simply drop the -y and add -ily to form the adverb.

Easy-easily

Heavy-heavily

Funny-funnily

If an adjective ends in an -l we normally add a -lly to the word to form an adverb.

Abnormal-abnormally

Careful-carefully

Casual-casually

Some adjectives end in -le and then we simply have to drop the -le and add-ly to

Comfortable-comfortably

Possible-possibly

Immediate-immediately

Some adverbs are irregular and are very important to learn. Let’s take a look at some of them!

Good-well

Fast-fast

Hard-hard

Let’s have a look at some sentences using adverbs.

He works quickly and quietly every day.

Mike drives slowly and carefully when he goes to work.

Sarah cooks well, I love her food.

I need to go to work immediately.

She sits comfortably in her big chair.

Peter drove very fast on the motorway.

Finally, we can also use comparatives with adverbs of manner. Adverbs ending in -ly have comparatives (more….than)

She ate more quickly than me.

Kevin eats more healthily than me.

I drive more slowly than you.

And adverbs ending in -er use the comparative form (er….than)

She ran faster than me.

Jason always works harder than me.

Good-better

She’s good, but I’m better than her. (exception)

Badly – worse than

She sings badly, but he sings worse than her. (exception)