Competitions - Adverbs Competitions!

Can you spot the seven adverbs in this recipe? The first person to correctly comment on the right adverbs will get $10 into their PayPal account! I know it isn’t a lot but I am going to start putting more competitions onto the site over time, and the prize fund will eventually grow!

So read over the three articles on Adverbs and see if you can correctly spot the seven adverbs in this recipe!

Adverbs Part One

Adverbs Part Two

Adverbs Part Three

Good luck and don't worry, this isn't an English lesson or test, it is just a bit of fun!

• Bring a pan of water to boil.

• Drop the spaghetti into water. If the pan you have is smaller than the spaghetti, slowly put it into the water and bend the spaghetti to fit.

• Rapidly boil the spaghetti for 10 minutes or so.

• Heat the oil.

• Add steak or mince and fry it quickly until brown.

• Add the tinned tomatoes and the red wine.

• Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

• Slowly crumble the stock cubes and stir.

• Allow the Bolognese to simmer slowly. Regularly stir to avoid sticking to the pan.

• Drain spaghetti and divide into portions.

• Spoon the Bolognese onto plates.

• Garnish and promptly serve while hot.

Grammar - Facts About Adverbs - Part Three

How to spot an adverb

Adverbs can be quite complicated. This is because you cannot tell an adverb by looking at it. You can tell an adverb by what it does in a sentence.

• The play went well – The word ‘well’ describes the verb ‘went’, so ‘well’ is the adverb.

• The well had to be drained by noon – The word well in this sentence names something, therefore it is a noun

• The well water tasted foul – The word well in this sentence is used to name the type of water rather than being a describing word. The word well in this sentence is not an adverb.

When you see ‘ly’ on the end of a word in a sentence, this is usually a good indication of an adverb as this is how many adverbs are created.

The word careful is an adjective, when you add ‘ly’ to make it carefully, it becomes an adverb.

However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule and some adverbs are irregular. Not all words that end in ‘ly’ are actually adverbs. There following words do end in ‘ly’ but are not adverbs:

• Friendly

• Lovely

• Lonely

Some words are adverbs as well as adjectives. These are words that can be used in different ways in a sentence and how they are positioned will tell us whether or not they are adverbs.

The two words ‘hard’ and ‘early’ are adverbs and adjectives. When they are adjectives they tell us about people, things and places. When they are adverbs they give us more information about the verb used.

• They arrived early – adverb

• She works extremely hard – adverb

• It is still early – adjective

• She is a hard woman to get along with - adjective

You can read the other articles in this series here:

Part One

Part Two

Grammar - Facts About Adverbs - Part Two

Where to place adverbs

There are usually three places where adverbs can be positioned in a sentence.

Adverbs can be placed at the beginning:

• Suddenly I had stomach ache

• I recently had a headache

Adverbs can also be placed at the end:

• I had severe stomach ache suddenly

• I had a headache recently

The majority of adverbs can be placed mid sentence which would be before the verb:

• I’m usually working on Fridays

• I never said I didn’t like you

To make sure your adverb fits into your sentence, read it aloud to see if it makes sense.

Read the other articles in this series here:

Part One

Part Three

Grammar - Facts About Adverbs - Part One

Adverbs are the words that give us more information about verbs. The adverbs add information to the verb. An example of a verb is a doing word or a being word – feel, walk.

When you use adverbs in sentences it makes them much more interesting.

Every verb you use in a sentence can have an adverb added to it.

• The boy smiled nervously

• The girl grinned sheepishly

We usually use adverbs to describe how something happens:

• The couple walk (how?) quickly

We also use adverbs to describe when or where something happens:

• We met her (when?) yesterday

We use adverbs to describe how often something happens:

• He gets a taxi (how often?) daily

Adverbs are usually formed from adjectives. Adjectives are describing words that tell us more information about nouns. This is done by adding ‘ly’ at the end of the adjective.

• Slow – Slowly

Some words may change in spelling when they change to adverbs. If the adjective ends with the letter ‘y’, you will have to change that ‘y’ into an ‘I’ before you actually add the ‘ly’.

• Scary – Scarily

• Happy – Happily

• Heavy – Heavily

You can read the other articles in this series here:

Part Two

Part Three

Grammar - The Secret to Adverbials

Ever wondered what an adverbial is and how they are used in sentences? Read on to find out!

An adverbial is an adverbial phrase, adverb or an adverbial clause which give us extra information about places, times or a manner of the action being described.

• We have been living here in this house for over thirty years

• We were sleeping peacefully in our beds when the lightning struck

You can see from the examples above that most adverbials are placed at the ends of the sentences. The place adverbials (here in this house), usually come before the time adverbials (for over thirty years). The manner adverbials, in this case peacefully, come before the adverbials describing the place (in our beds).

The adverbials don’t always have to follow this exact pattern, especially when we look at the adverbial clauses. You can start the sentence with the adverbial clause if you have to get the point across first.

• When the lightning struck, we were sleeping peacefully in our beds.

So, the adverbials should answer the following questions:

• Where?

• Why?

• How long?

• When?

• How often?

• How much?

• How?

Where did you decide to meet her? - I decided to meet her outside the bank.

Why did you decide to meet her there? - So that she could give me the money.

How long did you have to wait for her? - I had to wait for half an hour but she didn't arrive.

When did you first meet her? - We first met when she became the manageress of the bank.

How often have you been seeing her since then? - Once a week, normally. More frequently, if her husband was away.

The above examples that feature the adverbs of frequency are more often than not in the middle of the sentence, and then sometimes in the end. You can of course put them before the subject if needed:

• I sometimes drop by on my older brother when I’m in Scotland

• I never see my younger sister, but occasionally I see my older sister

Grammar - Positive and Negative Adverbs and Adjectives

Let’s look at words that can and can’t be used together in a sentence because of their negativity or positivity.

Utter - Utterly

The words utter and utterly are considered to be negative words therefore they shouldn’t be combined with a positive word. So the following examples would be incorrect:

• She was utterly excited

• She was utterly happy

The words utter and utterly should only be used in a negative context such as the following examples:

• She is an utter fool for saying that

• To spend all your time sat at the computer is a complete and utter waste of time

• They never had any intention of getting jobs and were utterly dependent on their parents and friends.

Complete – Completely

These words are much more easier to put into negative and positive sentences. See the following examples:

• He was an idiot, her new boyfriend is the complete opposite to him

• Millions of lives have been lost and millions of people have had their lives completely destroyed

• She looked completely gorgeous in that outfit

Even though this particular adjective/adverb can be positive, negative and neutral, we still cannot write the following phrase – completely excited.

Terrible – Terribly

One of the adverbs that is used most with the word excited is terribly. It is important to note that the adjective terrible can only be used in negative sentences, but the adverb terribly can be used to describe emotions in the extreme on either side.

• She was terrible in her last performance

• Is she ill? She looked terrible

• He was terribly upset when he lost his favourite toy

• The children get terribly excited the night before Christmas

Awful – Awfully

The adjectives and the adverbs awful and awfully follow a pattern like terrible and terribly. As awful is an adjective it can only be used in sentences that are negative. As awfully is an adverb it can be used in both negative and positive writing.

• I hope something awful hasn’t happened there

• He has always been awfully helpful

• She was awfully drunk that night

• It’s an awful shame she had to miss the dance