Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner are used to describe how things happen. They are usually put after the verb.

• The children are laughing happily.
• The girl is crying loudly.
• Liza dresses elegantly.

How to form adverbs of manner

Regular adverbs

Adverbs of manner are usually formed by adding ‘-ly’ to the adjective:

• careful → You should drive carefully at night.
• polite → Mary looks sad. Could you ask her politely, what has happened to her?
• serious → Seriously speaking, I don’t like this idea.

1. If the adjective ends in ‘-le’, remove ‘-e’ and add ‘-y’:

• gentle → This mechanism should be cleaned very gently.
• terrible → I will miss you terribly.

2. If the adjective ends in a consonant + ‘-y’, change ‘-y’ to ‘-ily’:

• angry → She looked at me angrily.
• easy → Jack can do grammar exercises easily.
• noisy → Your old printer works noisily, you should change it for a new one.

3. If the adjective ends in ‘-ful’, double the ‘-l’ and add ‘-y’:

• beautiful → Mary has cooked the meat beautifully.
• successful → Not all students passed their exams successfully.

Irregular adverbs

Some adverbs of manner are not formed by adding ‘-ly’:

1. ‘Well’ is the adverb of ‘good’. We often use ‘very’ and ‘quite’ with ‘well’:

• Jane speaks German and French very well.
• Nick runs long distances quite well.

2. Some adjectives ending in ‘-ly’, like ‘friendly’, ‘lovely’, ‘silly’, ‘ugly’, don’t change to become adverbs.

• He spoke to me in a friendly manner. (NOT: He spoke to me friendlyly)
• Her dancing is so lovely. (NOT: She dances so lovelyly).

3. Adverbs of manner, like ‘early’, ‘late’, ‘fast’, ‘hard’, ‘low’, have the same form as their adjectives:

• The bus is late again (adjective).
• A am afraid, we’ll arrive late (adv).
• Tom drives very fast, it’s dangerous.
• We’re working hard all day long.

Watch this short video from Top English to learn more about adverbs of degree:

Read more about adverbs:

How to Form Adverbs

Adverbs of Frequency

Adverbs of Place and Movement