Remember that adjectives are used to describe nouns: The service was quick.

Adverb, on the other hand, can modify:

• a verb (drive slowly)
• an adjective (really talented)
• another adverb (extremely fast)
• a preposition (right on time)
• a quantity (hardly any people)
• a numeral (over two hundred)
• a pronoun (nearly everybody)

The report says the economy will start declining slowly.

Adverbs of manner answer the question “how”. They are usually formed by adding the suffix -ly to the adjective. Note the spelling changes:

• y after a consonant changes to i (happy -> happily)
• if the adjective ends with the letters le, e becomes y (simple -> simply)
• with the words true, whole and due –e disappears before the ending –ly (true -> truly)

With adjectives ending in –ic, the adverb ending is –ally (e.g. automatic -> automatically). Note the exception public -> publicly. If the adjective ends with the letters –ly (e.g. friendly), the expressions in a…way/manner/fashion are used:

She offered her advice in a friendly way.

Compare to the adjective:

She was a friendly person.

The comparative forms of adverbs are formed in the same way as adjectives by using the words more and most (e.g. more respectfully) or endings –er and –est (e.g. faster).

Comparison of adjectives:

Their meetings became even more frequent.

Comparison of adverbs:

The investor trades more frequently in the Finnish stock market than the German one.

Remember the following irregular comparative forms of adverbs. In the superlative form of adverbs, the definite article the is mostly omitted:

• well, better, (the) best
• badly, worse, (the) worst

The Portuguese pitched their start-up idea best.

With some words, the adjective and the adverb look the same:

• early
• fast
• hard
• high
• late
• long
• low
• right
• straight
• wrong
• daily