Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Adverbs usually qualify verbs, adjectives (including past participles) and

even other adverbs.

Se movían lentamente. They moved slowly.

Es sumamente inepto. He is completely inept.

Lo explicó admirablemente bien. He explained it admirably well.

Adverbs both in English and Spanish may be divided into four broad cate-

gories, relating to manner, place, time, and degree or quantity.

In addition, adverbs like afortunadamente‘fortunately’ or necesariamente

‘necessarily’ can be described as sentence adverbs, as they apply to the whole

sentence rather than qualifying a single item such as a verb or an adjective.

As regards their form, adverbs in Spanish can be divided into those based

on an adjective plus the ending -mente, e.g. evidentemente‘evidently’ (see

7.1), and the remainder which have diverse forms, e.g. despacio ‘slowly’,

bien ‘well’, deprisa ‘quickly’ (see 7.2).

Adverbs ending in -mente

These are largely adverbs of manner, i.e. adverbs that say howan action

is carried out.

7.1

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111 63

Chapter 7 Adverbs

Invariability of adverbs

Adverbs are invariable in form. They do not adopt distinct mascu-

line and feminine forms or distinct singular and plural forms.