We know from last lesson that there is a distinct difference between an adjective and an adverb.
An adjective modifies a noun. An adverb modifies a verb.
There is a strong connection between an adjective and an adverb because both act as modifiers. Today we’ll talk about how to turn an adjective into an adverb.
Look at these sentences. The first italicized word in each sentence is an adjective. The second italicized word is an adverb.
A happy person will do something happily.
A dejected person will do something dejectedly.
A nervous person will do something nervously.
A doubtful person will do something doubtfully.
How did we make each adjective into an adverb? We added -ly.
Note that sometimes the spelling of the word changes slightly. We changed the -y in happy to an -i before adding -ly. We doubled the -l in doubtful before adding -ly.
Here are some other adjective to adverb pairs:
loose/loosely
That is a loose knot. He loosely tied the knot.
false/falsely
He gave a false statement. He spoke falsely.
truthful/truthfully
She is a truthful person. She spoke truthfully.
Many adjectives can be turned into adverbs by adding -ly. Use the adjective to tell more about an object. Use the adverb to describe how something is happening.