Adverbs

The concept of adverbs is very similar to that of adjectives – i.e. they are words that give more information about another word. As the term implies, adverbs are generally used to give extra information about a verb – usually to describe the action – e.g. to denote speed/sound/strength/etc.

Virtually all words that end with ‘ly’ in English are adverbs (the equivalent ending in Portuguese is ‘mente’ – e.g. profundamente).

However, although generally used to describe a verb, adverbs can also be used to describe other word types such as adjectives (although they are never used to describe a noun directly). For example: ‘The physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted girl arrived home.’ – the adverbs in this sentence are ‘physically’, ‘mentally’, and ‘emotionally’, which in this case are being used to describe the adjective ‘exhausted’ (which in turn describes the noun ‘girl’).

Basically then, to identify a word as an adverb, check whether the word describes something. If it does, but does not relate directly to a noun, it is probably an adverb. Some words can be either an adjective or an adverb depending on the context (e.g. the word ‘fast’ when used in the context of ‘a fast car’ is an adjective, but when you say ‘the car was going fast’ it is an adverb).