Do you already know how to form Spanish adverbs? Today our Spanish school El Rincón del Tándem invites you to discover more about this topic through this post. Enjoy it!
An adverb is a part of the speech that completes the meaning of a verb, an adjective, other adverbs or a group of words. It provides a circumstantial description in relation of place, manner, cause, quantity, etc.
Adverbs are invariable words, i.e. they do not change according to gender or number.
How to form Spanish adverbs
Spanish adverbs can be formed in different ways:
1. Adding the suffix – mente to the feminine singular form of an adjective
Adv.: Rapidamente = quietly
Rápido (adj.m.sing.) – Rápida (adj.f.sing.) – Rápidamente (adv.)
When adjectives end in a consonant or -e, it is only needed to add the suffix –mente.
Adv.: Constantemente = constantly
Constante (adj.m./f.sing.) – Constantemente
Adv.: Finalmente = finally
Final (adj.m./f.sing.) – Finalmente
When a sentence contains two or more consecutive adverbs, the first adverb is the same as the feminine singular form of the adjective and only the last adverb has the –mente suffix.
Example: María andaba por la calle lenta y silenciosamente = María was walking on the street slowly and silently.
Note: When the adjective has an accent, it remains in the correspondent adverb.
Example:
Difícil (adj.m./f.sing) – Difícilmente (adv.)
Inútil (adj.m./f.sing) – Inútilmente (adv.)
2. Using the masculine singular form of the adjective. This type of adverbs are called adverbial adjective.
Some of them are: estupendo, lento, claro, rápido, duro, fatal, alto, etc
Some of these adverbs, can also adopt the form ending in – mente. For instance: Rápido / rápidamente, duro/duramente, claro/claramente, etc.
Example:
Lucas ha trabajado duro esta semana
Lucas ha trabajado duramente esta semana = Lucas has worked hard this week.
3. Using the preposition CON + a noun
Example: con cuidado / con cariño / con prisa / con amor / con retraso / con tiempo, etc.
Paula llegó al trabajo con retraso = Paula arrived late to work
Note: Is it also very common in Spanish to use a phrase instead of a single word adverb to express the same meaning. In fact, these phrases are called adverbial phrases, and can be composed of a preposition + (article) + noun or of expression like de modo / de manera + adjective.
4. Some adverbs cannot be formed following any pattern. The only way to learn them, is memorizing.
Some examples:
Tarde (late), temprano (early)
Nunca (never), siempre (always),
Mal (badly), bien (good)
Poco (little), mucho (a lot), bastante (quite)
If you want to know more about adverbs, have a look at our previous post on Spanish adverbs of quantity and time.
We hope this post will help you with your Spanish studies. Soon our Spanish school in Valencia will publish more posts about Spanish grammar and culture.
Have a nice day!
