How to use adverbs in French?

French adverbs are used to modify and add information to:

• a verb:

  verbadverb

  Je travaille tard.

  Translation: I work late.

• an adjective:

  adverbadjective

  Il est très grand.

  Translation: He is very tall.

• or another adverb:

  adverbadverb

  Cette appli fonctionne super bien !

  Translation: This app works really well.

Do you get confused about the position of adverbs in the sentence? In this post, we’ll review how and why to use French adverbs, how to form them, the different types of adverbs, their position, and irregular adverbs. Let’s get started!

Adverbs in French are used to modify three types of words: verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Just like in English, using adverbs in French will make your sentences richer and more interesting and help to convey your ideas better, especially in arguments! If you are stuck for ideas, you can ask yourself the following questions: where, when, how, how long, or how often?

For example, I could just say, Emilie est rentrée (meaning Emily came back). But I can also ask when: Emilie est rentrée hier (meaning Emily came back yesterday), or how: Elle est rentrée silencieusement (meaning She came back silently).

We use adverbs to:

• modify a verb

  verbadverb

  Samira mange souvent des plats à emporter.

  Translation: Samira often eats takeaway food.

• modify an adjective

  adverbadjective

  Ma tante est très gentille.

  Translation: My aunt is very nice.

• modify another adverb

  adverbadverb

  Le joueur a traversé le terrain si rapidement ! 🏈

  Translation: The player went across the field so quickly.

All adverbs are invariable. However, there are a handful of adjectives that can be used as adverbs and these adjectives must still agree in certain circumstances.

A large number of French adverbs are formed by taking an adjective and adding the ending -ment, which is the equivalent of the ending “-ly” in English. There are a few rules for forming these kinds of adverbs:

• If the adjective ends with a vowel, we add -ment.

  rapide → rapidement

  Translation: quick → quickly

  absolu → absolument

  Translation: absolute → absolutely

• If the adjective ends with a consonant (that is not the cluster -ent or -ant), use its feminine form, and add -ment to that.

  lent → lente → lentement

  Translation: slow (m.) → slow (f.) → slowly

  joyeux → joyeuse → joyeusement

  Translation: happy (m.) → happy (f.) → happily

• If the adjective ends in -ent or -ant, remove -ent or -ant and add the endings -emment or -amment, respectively. Note that -emment and -ammant are both pronounced (transcribed ama(n)).

  prudent → prudemment

  Translation: careful → carefully

  courant → couramment

  Translation: common → commonly

But remember, not all French adverbs are based on an adjective and not all end in -ment! Let’s now take a look at the different types of adverbs.

The most common types of adverbs you’ll encounter in French are adverbs of manner, of time and frequency, of place, of quantity and degree, of sequence, and of affirmation, and you will also encounter causal, modal, and interrogative adverbs. The table below shows examples of each of the main categories of adverbs. Please look at the list of the most common French adverbs to see more.

The next section is very important — we are going to look at the position of adverbs in the sentence.

Where you put an adverb in a French sentence will depend on its length, on the type of adverb, and on the tense of the sentence. I’m presenting the main points here to help you use adverbs accurately.

• In a simple tense, the adverb goes after the conjugated verb. If you need to remember one thing from this article, I would suggest that it is this. Because it is an error I hear so often from my students (especially with adverbs of frequency such as souvent (meaning often) or toujours (meaning always)).

  conjugated verbadverb

  On regarde souvent les matchs de rugby en famille.

  Translation: We often go to see rugby games as a family.

  If the sentence is negative, the adverb is found after the negation pas (meaning not).

  negation - pasadverb

  Il ne progresse pas vite !

  Translation: He’s not progressing quickly.

• In sentences that use compound tenses such as le passé composé, there are several possibilities and no strict rules.

  • Longer adverbs of manner tend to be placed after the past participle:

    past participleadverb

    Elle est partie précipitamment.

    Translation: She left hastily.

  • Adverbs of quantity and degree (beaucoup, assez), certain adverbs of time (souvent, toujours), adverbs of certainty (certainement), and adverbs of doubt (peut-être) are usually found before the past participle:

    adverbpast participle

    Tu as vraiment habité au Japon pendant trois ans ?

    Translation: Did you really live in Japan for three years?

• Adverbs of time, especially those referring to specific days like hier (meaning yesterday), aujourd’hui (meaning today), or demain (meaning tomorrow) are placed at the very beginning of the sentence or right at the end of the sentence.

  Demain, il va neiger.

  Translation: It is going to snow tomorrow.

  Il a plu hier.

  Translation: It rained yesterday.

• Long adverbs also tend to go either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.

  Elle a monté les marches lentement.

  Translation: She walked up the stairs slowly.

• You will find adverbs of place after the direct object.

  direct objectadverb of place

  Il a garé sa voiture à gauche.

  Translation: He parked his car on the left.

• Adverbs that modify an adjective are found just before the adjective. These will usually be adverbs of quantity and degree such as un peu (meaning a little).

  adverbadjective

  Ses parents sont très fiers de lui.

  Translation: His parents are very proud of him.

• And in the same way, adverbs that modify another adverb are situated before the adverb they modify

  modifying adverbmodified adverb

  Elle ne parle pas assez fort.

  Translation: She doesn’t speak loud enough.

• The adverb ensemble (meaning together) always goes after the verb.

  verbadverb

  Pourquoi ne sont-elles pas venues ensemble ?

  Translation: Why didn’t they come together?

Before we finish, I want to clarify a few adverbs that usually cause confusion. ☹

My students often confuse the adverbs and adjectives bienand bon, mal and mauvais, and vite and rapide. And it’s understandable; “fast” in English, for instance, can be either an adverb or an adjective.

So which one is the adverb, and which one is the adjective?

We also go into more detail about the differences between bien and bon(ne) in French in our post on confusing words!

When using adverbs in French, keep the following points in mind:

• they modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb

• they are invariable

• they are often based on the feminine form of an adjective, to which we add the ending -ment

• in simple tenses, they are placed before the conjugated verbs

• in compound tenses, longer adverbs of manner are usually after the past participle, whereas all other adverbs are found before the past participle

• bien, mal, and vite are adverbs

You are now ready to use indefinite adjectives and adverbs! Don’t forget to read the recap before you start the French adverb activities!