AdverbsAdjectives are added to Nouns to refer more precisely to something (a green cat). Adverbs do the same job, but they are added to other sorts of words: verbs (to eat slowly), adjectives (very big), other adverbs (more quickly) or whole clauses (Today, we are going to be talking about squirrels). It is convenient to divide French adverbs into two groups: long adverbs and short adverbs. (We use long and short as labels here simply because most of the first group are long and most of the second group are short. This is not a traditional distinction, but it is useful for understanding because the two groups require a different learning strategy: you have to learn the meanings of short adverbs, and they are extremely common, but you can usually work out the meaning of long adverbs, providing you know the corresponding adjective, and they are much less common.) Most Negatives are also adverbs, but are treated in their own section.
Long adverbsLong adverbs are easy to spot. They all end in -ment, they correspond to English adverbs ending in -ly, and they are derived from adjectives. You should recognize the following.
Notice how the above derivations work. This is the most common way adverbs and adjectives are linked. The second commonest link is as follows:
The above derivations are standard for adjectives ending in -ant or in -ent. How would you formulate a rule for this type of derivation?
Short adverbsWhat we have called short adverbs are among the commonest words in the language, so it is essential to know them. Here are the 30 most frequent. Note any you don't know and add them to your list of words to learn. Test yourself periodically, using the exercises, to make sure you recognize them and know the English equivalents.
It is interesting to note that if long adverbs had been included here,
among the most common forms, only seulement and également
would have made the list.
Exercises
|
Write the rule
out in your Notebook. 
