RapideFrench.com
Adverbs add meaning to a verb and describe actions. They usually tell you where, when or how something happened or how it is done. Examples in English are slowly, precisely, immediately, happily – for example She quickly runs home or He eats slowly. Notice the 'ly' at the end. In French most adverbs end in 'ment' which is added on to the masculine if that ends in a vowel, otherwise is added on to the feminine form of the adjective for example:
In most cases where the masculine adjective ends in 'ent' or 'ant' we instead remove the 'nt' and add 'mment', for example:
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As always there are some exceptions that don't follow either rule, for example (look out for where the 'e' changes to 'é' and for 'mal' and 'vite'):
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Notice that in the first English example above quickly is before the verb, and in the second example slowly is after the verb. In French, the advert is after the verb 99% of the time, so the above examples in French would be:
If an advert modifies a negative verb, then it goes after the pas/que, etc. For example il ne mange pas lentement. In the perfect (compound past) tense the advert goes after the auxiliary (avoir/être) and before the past participle, except if it is a long one (!), so for the above examples:
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There are also adverbs of time, frequency and place which are also usually come after the verb, for example elle arrive toujours en retard (she always arrives late), il mange souvent des beignets (he often eats donuts) and je suis dehors (I am outside). The table below shows the common adverbs of time, frequency and place.
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Some adverbs can modify or intensify other adverbs. For example in the sentence Il est vite 'est' is the verb and 'vite' is the adverb. très is an adverb modifier e.g. Il est très vite. Adverb modifiers include all the adverbs of frequency, time and place and:
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