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Jun
26th

The Easy Trick to Using Adverbs Easily

Categories: ESL Vocabulary, SAT Vocabulary, Vocabulary for Success, Vocabulary Improvement Tips |

The adverb is a useful part of speech, and one that you’ve probably encountered if you have been following our suggestion to look at related words when you’re learning a new one. For example, if you recently added the word success to your vocabulary, you’ll be able to quickly add two more words at the same time, by including the adjectival form successful and the adverbial form successfully. In the last post, we talked about the adjective and adverb you can derive from the word “hope” – hopeful and hopefully – and we hope you won’t mind if we continue the lesson about correct and incorrect ways to use these word forms.

As we mentioned last time, the word hopeful literally means “full of hope.” It’s an adjective, and therefore describes something. When you add -ly to the word and make it an adverb, it changes the meaning of the word to “in a hopeful manner,” and you’ll use it to describe how that something happens.

The committee met in a hopeful mood, glad to have the support of the council and the mayor.
“Can we get through all our agenda items today?” the chairman asked hopefully.

Here’s the easy trick to using adverbs easily: remember that they tell you how.

With that in mind, take a look at two more confusing word pairs, where people frequently mix up the adverbial and adjectival forms of the word:

regretful and regretfully
You may regret the fact that you have to go to the office on Friday, and regretfully reply to your friend who’s asked you to join her at the beach that you just can’t take the day off. On the other hand, you might decide to “call in sick” and jump in her car, only to be regretful the next day that you left all that work on your desk.

awful and awfully
The original meaning of this word was “awe-full” – that is, “full of awe” or “inspiring feelings of awe.” However, these days it means “terrible” or “inspiring feelings of horror” – just another example of how English words change over the centuries! What doesn’t change, though is the addition of -ly to create an adverb, and different ways you use the two forms of the word.

The construction site creates an awful racket.
The choir sang awfully because they couldn’t hear each other over the noise.

Learn the correct way of using adverbs, and you’ll be speaking correctly in no time at all!