Page 212 - English Grammar in Use

Unit
100 Adjectives and adverbs 1 (quick/quickly)

A You can say:
Our holiday was too short – the time passed very quickly.
Two people were seriously injured in the accident.
Quickly and seriously are adverbs. Many adverbs are adjective + -ly:
adjective quick serious careful bad heavy terrible
adverb quickly seriously carefully badly heavily terribly
For spelling, see Appendix 6.
Not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. Some adjectives end in -ly too, for example:
friendly lively elderly lonely lovely
It was a lovely day.

B Adjective or adverb?

Adjectives (quick/careful etc.) tell us about a Adverbs (quickly/carefully etc.) tell us about
noun (somebody or something). We use a verb (how somebody does something or
adjectives before nouns: how something happens):

Sam is a careful driver. Sam drove carefully along the narrow
(not a carefully driver) road. (not drove careful)
We didn’t go out because of the heavy We didn’t go out because it was raining
rain. heavily. (not raining heavy)

Compare:

She speaks perfect English. She speaks English perfectly.
adjective + noun verb + noun + adverb

C We use adjectives after some verbs, especially be, and also look/feel/sound etc.
Compare:
Please be quiet. Please speak quietly.
My exam results were really bad. I did really badly in the exam.
Why do you always look so serious? Why do you never take me seriously?
I feel happy. The children were playing happily.

D You can also use adverbs before adjectives and other adverbs. For example:
reasonably cheap (adverb + adjective)
terribly sorry (adverb + adjective)
incredibly quickly (adverb + adverb)
It’s a reasonably cheap restaurant and the food is extremely good.
I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.
Maria learns languages incredibly quickly.
The exam was surprisingly easy.
You can also use an adverb before a past participle (injured/organised/written etc.):
Two people were seriously injured in the accident. (not serious injured)
The conference was badly organised.

200 Adjectives after be/look/feel etc. ➜ Unit 99C Adjectives and adverbs 2 ➜ Unit 101