Adjectives vs adverbs
Use adjectives and adverbs correctly, choosing between them depending on whether a noun or verb/adjective is being modified (e.g., 'She ran quickly' vs 'She is quick')
What a learner can do afterwards
- Choose the correct form: 'The dog is (slow/slowly)' vs 'The dog walks (slow/slowly)'
- Identify whether a word is modifying a noun (adjective) or a verb (adverb) in a given sentence
- Expand sentences by adding both an adjective and an adverb: 'The tall boy ran quickly'
The lesson
You already know how to describe a noun with an adjective, like 'the tall boy' or 'the shiny ball.' Adverbs have a different job: they describe a verb, telling you how an action happens, like 'ran quickly' or 'spoke softly.'
Look at these two sentences. 'The quick fox' uses quick, an adjective, to describe the fox. 'The fox runs quickly' uses quickly, an adverb, to describe how it runs.
Here's a trick: many adverbs end in -ly. Slow becomes slowly, quiet becomes quietly, careful becomes carefully. If a word tells you how a verb happens, look for that -ly ending.
'She is a careful writer' uses careful to describe the writer, a noun. 'She writes carefully' uses carefully to describe writes, a verb. Same idea, two different words.
Adjectives describe nouns, adverbs describe verbs, and many adverbs end in -ly.
Watch it
Where it sits
Learn first
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.