Adverbs

Adverbs

General Overview

• Adverbs in Spanish, like in English, are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They provide additional information about how, when, where, or to what degree something happens.
• For example: rápidamente (quickly), ahora (now), pronto (soon), muy (very), bien (well).

Formation of Adverbs

• Many adverbs in Spanish are formed by simply adding ‘-mente’ to the feminine singular form of an adjective.
• For instance, lenta (slow, feminine adjective) becomes lentamente (slowly, adverb).
• If the adjective has a different form for masculine and feminine, use the feminine form to create the adverb.
• For example, feliz (happy) will become felizmente (happily), but rápido (fast, masculine adjective) will become rápidamente (quickly).

Placement of Adverbs

• The placement of adverbs can be flexible in Spanish, but they normally follow the verb they modify.
• For example: Corro rápidamente (I run quickly).
• However, sometimes for emphasis, they can go before the verb: Siempre estudia (She always studies).

Irregular Adverbs

• There are also many irregular adverbs which do not follow the standard rules and need to be memorised. Some of these are bien (well), mal (badly), aquí (here), allí (there).
• For example, Ella canta bien (She sings well).

Comparative and Superlative Form

• Just like adjectives, adverbs can also have comparative and superlative forms.
• Comparative adverbs are formed with más (more) or menos (less) + adverb + que (than).
• For example, Corro más rápidamente que tú (I run more quickly than you).
• Superlative adverbs are formed with el/la/los/las + más or menos + adverb.
• For example, Corro la más rápidamente (I run the most quickly).