Language 1 - Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner explain how something happens. They are often formed with adjective + –ly. Adjectives describe nouns (people,
things) and adverbs describe verbs (actions).

He is a responsible driVer He driVes responsibly.

Adjective Type Example Adverb of Manner Change Examples

Most adjectives interesting Add –ly interestingly
Ending in –y happy Change y to –ily happily
Ending in –ful beautiful Add –ly beautifully
Ending in –le terrible Change e for y terribly
Ending in –ic fantastic Add –ally fantastically
Irregular good well

Adverbs of manner can express many aspects of the verb. They can describe the physical actions of the verb (slowly, quietly), an
opinion about the action (well, fantastically, easily, surprisingly), emotions (happily, angrily), and possibilities (probably, definitely).

Adverbs of manner usually follow the verb they describe.

She dances terribly. Surprisingly, many people can’t swim.

My team didn’t play well. He is probably the best guitarist in the world.
However, some adverbs can go in different places in a sentence.

A Complete the table with the correct form of the adverbs.

Adjective Adverb
quick 1 quickly
noisy 2 noisily
positive 3 positively
careful 4 carefully
responsible 5 responsibly
efficient 6 efficiently
obvious 7 obviously
definite 8 definitely
wasteful 9 wastefully
good 10 well

D.R. © Macmillan Publishers, S.A. de C.V. 2014. Only for teaching purposes.
 Language 1 - Adverbs of Manner

B Complete the sentences with appropriate adverbs of manner from the box.
clearly surprisingly heavily slowly definitely loudly luckily fluently carefully beautifully

1 Can you speak any foreign languages fluently ?

2 She will definitely win the singing competition. She sings beautifully .
3 He did his homework too quickly and made a lot of mistakes. He needs to do his homework
slowly and carefully .
4 I expected the movie to be bad, but surprisingly , it was very good.
5 It was raining heavily all day. luckily , I had my umbrella with me.
6 I spoke clearly and loudly so that everybody could hear.

D.R. © Macmillan Publishers, S.A. de C.V. 2014. Only for teaching purposes.