adverbs

Adverbs of manner are usually formed from adjectives by adding –ly:

bad > badly; quiet > quietly; recent > recently; sudden > suddenly

but there are sometimes changes in spelling:

easy > easily; gentle > gently

If an adjective ends in –ly we use the phrase in a …. way to express manner:

Silly > He behaved in a silly way.
Friendly > She spoke in a friendly way.

A few adverbs of manner have the same form as the adjective:

They all worked hard.
She usually arrives late.
I hate driving fast.

Note: hardly and lately have different meanings:
He could hardly walk = It was difficult for him to walk.
I haven’t seen John lately = I haven’t seen John recently.

We often use phrases with like as adverbials of manner:

She slept like a baby.
He ran like a rabbit.

Adverbs of manner and link verbs

We very often use adverbials with like after link verbs:

Her hands felt like ice.
It smells like fresh bread.

But we do not use other adverbials of manner after link verbs. We use adjectives instead:

They looked happily happy.
That bread smells deliciously delicious.

adverbials of place

 

We use adverbials of place to describe:

Location

We use prepositions to talk about where someone or something is.
 Examples:

• He was standing by the table.
• You’ll find it in the cupboard.
• Sign your name here – at the bottom of the page.

Direction

We use adverbials to to talk about the direction where someone or something is moving.
Examples:

• Walk past the bank and keep going to the end of the street.
• The car door is very small so it’s difficult to get into.

Distance

We use adverbials to show how far things are:
Examples:

• Birmingham is 250 kilometres from London.
• We were in London. Birmingham was 250 kilometres away.

 

adverbials of location

Location

We use prepositions to talk about where someone or something is:

above	among	at	behind	below	beneath
beside	between	by	in	in between	inside
near	next to	on	opposite	outside	over
round	through	under	underneath

He was standing by the table.
She lives in a village near Glasgow.
You’ll find it in the cupboard.

We use phrases with of as prepositions:

at the back of	at the top of	at the bottom of	at the end of
on top of	at the front of	in front of	in the middle of

There were some flowers in the middle of the table.
Sign your name here – at the bottom of the page.
I can’t see. You’re standing in front of me.

We can use right as an intensifier with some of these prepositions:

He was standing right next to the table.
There were some flowers right in the middle of the table.
There’s a wood right behind our house.

 

adverbials of direction

Direction

We also use prepositional phrases to talk about direction:

across	along	back	back to	down	into
onto	out of	past	through	to	towards

She ran out of the house.
Walk past the bank and keep going to the end of the street.

We also use adverbs and adverb phrases for place and direction:

abroad	away	anywhere	downstairs	downwards
everywhere	here	indoors	inside	nowhere
outdoors	outside	somewhere	there	upstairs

I would love to see Paris. I’ve never been there.
The bedroom is upstairs.
It was so cold that we stayed indoors.

We often have a preposition at the end of a clause:

This is the room we have our meals in.
The car door is very small so it’s difficult to get into.
I lifted the carpet and looked underneath.

 

Distance

We use adverbials to show how far things are:

Birmingham is 250 kilometres from London.
Birmingham is 250 kilometres away from London.
It is 250 kilometres from Birmingham to London.

Sometimes we use a preposition at the end of a clause:

We were in London. Birmingham was 250 kilometres away.
Birmingham was 250 kilometres off.

adverbials of time

 

Adverbials of time

We use adverbials of time to say:
• when something happened:

I saw Mary yesterday.
She was born in 1978.
I will see you later.
There was a storm during the night.

• for how long :

We waited all day.
They have lived here since 2004.
We will be on holiday from July 1st until August 3rd.

• how often (frequency):

They usually watched television in the evening.
We sometimes went to work by car.

We often use a noun phrase as a time adverbial:

yesterday	last week/month/year	one day/week/month	last Saturday
tomorrow	next week/month/year	the day after tomorrow	next Friday
today	this week/month/year	the day before yesterday	the other day/week/month

time and dates

 

We use phrases with prepositions as time adverbials:
• We use at with:

clock times: at seven o’clock - at nine thirty - at fifteen hundred hours
mealtimes: at breakfast - at lunchtime - at teatime

… and in these phrases:

at night - at the weekend - at Christmas - at Easter

• We use in with:

seasons of the year: in spring/summer/autumn/winter - in the spring /summer/autumn/winter
years and centuries: in 2009 -in 1998 - in the twentieth century
months: in January/February/March etc.
parts of the day: in the morning - in the afternoon - in the evening.

• We use on with:

days: on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday etc - on Christmas day - on my birthday.
dates: on the thirty first of July - on June 15th

Note: We say at night when we are talking about all of the night:

When there is no moon it is very dark at night.
He sleeps during the day and works at night.

but we say in the night when we are talking about a short time during the night:

He woke up twice in the night.
I heard a funny noise in the night.

We use the adverb ago with the past simple to say how long before the time of speaking something happened:

I saw Jim about three weeks ago.
We arrived a few minutes ago.

We can put time phrases together:

We will meet next week at six o’clock on Monday.
I heard a funny noise at about eleven o’clock last night.
It happened last week at seven o’clock on Monday night.

 

how long

We use for to say how long:

We have been waiting for twenty minutes.
They lived in Manchester for fifteen years.

We use since with the present perfect or the past perfect to say when something started:

I have worked here since December.
They had been watching since seven o’clock in the morning.

We use from …to/until to say when something starts and finishes:

They stayed with us from Monday to Friday.
We will be on holiday from the sixteenth until the twentieth.