As we mentioned, the adverb can be used to modify various different types of words. We are now going to take a closer look at each of these and how it works.

Adverbs with Verbs

An adverb can be used to talk about how an action is happening. You might think about this as the adverb being used to answer the question how does something happen? or In what manner does it happen? Some examples of this are:

• My dog barks loudly.
• He will seriously think about this idea.

We can see here that the adverbs answer the questions how does your dog bark? or how will you think about this idea? In the most simple terms, if you want to find out how an action has been performed, an adverb will answer this.

It is important to remember that adverbs should not be used with a linking verb, examples of these might be to smell, to feel, to seem, to appear or to taste. If you consider the following sentence you will see that the adverb does not fit, and that an adjective might be more appropriate.

• He feels terribly about the death of his aunt.

We mentioned that adverbs describe how an action takes place but with a linking verb, it is required to describe what is taking place, for example what he is feeling. This would mean that an adjective would work better, take a look:

• He feels terrible about the death of his aunt..

Adverbs with Adjectives and other Adverbs

An adverb also has the ability to modify either another adverb or an adjective. This is a great way to cause the adjective to become more intense and descriptive, giving a much more clear indication of what is being spoken about. Consider the phrase he is tall. The adjective here is tall, but with the use of an adverb, we can describe how tall he is. Look at the sentence once it has been modified:

• He is very tall.

Here are some more examples of how an adverb can modify an adjective.

• My sister is rather attractive.
• The beach was unexpectedly busy.
• My teacher is always well dressed.

You might also use an adverb to modify another adverb, take a look at the following example:

• The food here is almost never good.

The adverb almost is being used to modify the adverb never and both of these are being used to modify the word good.

When you are using an adverb with another adverb, there is the possibility to go as far as you would like and use several adverbs together, however you should err on the side of caution with this since it can make a sentence weak. It is preferable to choose one or two adverbs to make your sentence stronger and less bulky. Lets look at an example of a sentence with too many adverbs.

• My father shouts quite horrifically too loudly.

You can understand what the sentence is trying to tell us but the use of adverbs is a little too much.

Adverbs to Modify a Sentence

An adverb can be used to modify a whole sentence and in this case will appear usually at the beginning. When used in this way, the adverb is not talking about any specific thing but is rather being used as a way to give an overall feeling for all of the information presented. Some examples of this are:

• Generally, people take the train into London.
• Luckily, my family lives in a nice location.
• Interestingly, the ancient people ate the same meats as we do.

Adverbs for Comparison

In some cases, you might use an adverb to make a comparison. You can do this by adding the words more or most in front of the adverb. Lets look at the progression of this in the following sentences.

• He ran quickly.
• He ran more quickly
• He ran the most quickly.