Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjective + Noun Jason is a funny boy. My classmate is a smart girl. Our professor was an old man.

Subject + verb + adjective After waiting for an hour, she became impatient. Today the sea looks calm. The new teacher appears friendly. The question doesn’t seem difficult. The story sounds interesting. I said I was sorry, but he remained angry.

BE CAREFUL! The verbs BE, LOOK, SMELL, SOUND, TASTE, APPEAR, FEEL, REMAIN, and SEEM are not used in present continuous tense when used with adjectives. (GET and BECOME can be used in present continuous). With adjectives, these verbs do not mean and action, and they do not take an object. If there is an object, their meaning is different. Then, they are action verbs, and they are used with adverbs. e.g. Your friend looks nice. (Simple present tense, no object, adjective). e.g. The policeman is looking at the building carefully. (action verb, object, adverb).

ADVERBS Adverbs describe verbs: e.g. My classmate speaks Spanish well. John cleans the house badly. Adverbs describe adjectives or adverbs: e.g. My classmate speaks Spanish very well. His accent is so good. Adverbs can describe whole sentences: e.g. Normally, she leaves the office at five. Unfortunately, today she’s working until ten p.m.

FORMING ADVERBS Sometimes, we can form adverbs by simply adding –ly to an adjective: e.g. nice → nicely quick → quickly sudden → suddenly sad → sadly Sometimes, the spelling changes when we add –ly: e.g. happy → happily terrible → terribly careful → carefully true → truly

Some adjectives do not take –ly. These have irregular adverbs: e.g. late → late early → early fast → fast straight → straight hard → hard good → well

BE CAREFUL! e.g. friendly, lovely, ugly, costly, etc. Some adjectives end in –ly. These do not take another –ly. We do not use these as adverbs: e.g. friendly, lovely, ugly, costly, etc.

Adjective + ENOUGH “enough” means the necessary amount, just what you need. It comes after the adjective. e.g. These pants are not long enough. They are too short. e.g. This dress is not large enough for me . It is too small for me. e.g. Sit here, the couch is big enough for both of us.

adverb+ ENOUGH ENOUGH + NOUN Similarly, we can use “enough” after adverbs: e.g. He woke up early enough, so he didn’t miss the bus. e.g. I can’t write quickly enough. You’re speaking too fast. Can you speak slowly? ENOUGH + NOUN e.g. I want to make a cake. Do we have enough eggs?

With purpose (to+v) e.g. The water was warm enough for us to swim. e.g. The coffee is not sweet enough to drink. Can I have some milk and sugar? e.g. That athlete’s running fast enough to win the race! e.g. There isn’t enough shampoo to wash my hair. Let’s go shopping.

So+adjective+that We use this to join reason with result: e.g. Reason: She was tired. Result: She slept at the concert. → She was so tired that she slept at the concert. e.g. Reason: My shopping bags were heavy. Result: My arms hurt. → My shopping bags were so heavy that my arms hurt. We can use this with adverbs too. e.g. She talks fast. I don’t understand her. → She talks so fast that I don’t understand. (She talks too fast for me to understand).

We use this to join reason with result: e.g. Reason: She was tired. Result: She slept at the concert. → She was so tired that she slept at the concert. e.g. Reason: My shopping bags were heavy. Result: My arms hurt. → My shopping bags were so heavy that my arms hurt. We can use this with adverbs too. e.g. She talks fast. I don’t understand her. → She talks so fast that I don’t understand. (She talks too fast for me to understand).