What are adverbs?
Adverbs are words that tell us how, when, where something happens. A lot of adverbs end in ‘..-ly’ and tell us how an action has been done.
He drives slowly.
She speaks quickly.
There are many adverbs just like ‘slowly’ and ‘quickly’ that describe a ‘verb’ and tell us how it is done. Not all adverbs end in ‘ly’.
Two of the most famous examples of adverbs which do not end in ‘…-ly’ are ‘:
- well
- fast
‘How does he speak French? He speaks French well.‘
We cannot use the word ‘good’ here, because ‘good’ is an adjective and describes nouns, things. ‘The book is good’, ‘The food is good’.
‘Book’ and ‘food’ are nouns.
‘How does he drive? He drives very fast.’
We do not say ‘fastly’ but just fast, but here it’s an adverb as it’s describing a verb.
‘Where adverbs’.
Where adverbs tells us where something happened.
They include ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘inside’, ‘outside’, ‘everywhere’ and other words.
- He wrote the book quickly.
- He wrote the book after lunch.
- He wrote the book inside.
So ‘inside’ is an adverb as it tells us ‘where’ he wrote the book.
Here is a list of ‘where adverbs’ , also known as ‘adverbs of place’ with examples:
About – The next town is about 20 kilometres from here.
Above – I live in the first floor, he lives above in the second floor.
Abroad – He left this country and lives abroad now.
Anywhere – You can’t just go to any university or anywhere you want, you have to get good grades!
Away – It is 50 kilometres away from here.
Back – Turn back, you are going in the wrong direction.
Backwards – The car was reversing and going backwards.
Behind – He sits behind me in class
Below – He is below in the room downstairs.
Down – When Newton dropped an apple, it fell down.
Elsewhere – Don’t put it there, put it elsewhere.’
Far – He moved far away from here.
Here – He drove here yesterday.
In – The meat is in the fridge.
Indoors – Because of the rain we stayed indoors.
Inside – They have a swimming pool inside their house.
Near – He jogs near the park every day.
Off – The car fell off the cliff!
On – The book is on the table.
Out – The cat is out of the house.
Outside – He is not home, he has gone outside.
over – ‘The fox jumped over the fence.’
There – I will go there tomorrow.
Towards – The car started moving towards the traffic lights.
Under – Potatoes come from under the earth.
Up – Let’s walk up the stairs.
