Adverbs vs. Adjectives

Form

An adjective describes a noun or pronoun ('a careful driver', 'she is careful').

An adverb describes a verb, an adjective or another adverb, and most are made by adding -ly to the adjective (careful → carefully, happy → happily, simple → simply). A few adverbs have no -ly at all and look exactly like the adjective: fast, hard, late, early, straight, high and low are the common ones ('a fast car' / 'she drives fast'). The adverb of “good” is the irregular “well”. Watch out for a handful of -ly words that are adjectives rather than adverbs: friendly, lovely and lonely ('a friendly smile', not 'she smiled friendly').

When to Use It

1. 1

   Use an adjective right before the noun it describes

   She gave a clear explanation.

2. 2

   Use an adjective after a verb that links the subject to a description — be, seem, become, get, stay, remain, appear, and look, feel, smell, taste and sound when they describe the subject rather than an action —

   The soup smells delicious.

3. 3

   Use an adverb when look, feel, smell, taste or sound describes a real action instead of a quality of the subject

   She looked at the map carefully.

4. 4

   Use an adverb to say how, when or how often an action happens

   He explained the rule clearly and He often works late.

5. 5

   Use an adverb to strengthen or soften an adjective or another adverb

   The policy proved surprisingly effective.

6. 6

   Use “well” as the adverb of “good”, as in “She speaks English well” — but “well” is also an adjective meaning healthy

   She still does not feel well.

Common Mistakes

• Using the adjective after an action verb: write He drives carefully, not He drives careful — “drives” is an action, so it takes an adverb.
• Using the adverb where the word describes the subject: write The cake tastes wonderful, not The cake tastes wonderfully — the word describes the cake, not the tasting. When the same verb describes a real action, the adverb is right: “He looked at me angrily.”
• Using “good” where the adverb is needed: write The team performed well, not The team performed good.
• Adding -ly to a flat adverb: write He drives too fast, not He drives too fastly — “fastly” is not a word.
• Mixing up a flat adverb with its -ly twin, which means something else: write He works hard (with effort), not He works hardly (almost not at all); and She arrived late (not on time), not She arrived lately (recently).