French Grammar Explained /
Adverbs in -ment I
Adverbs are used to describe a verb, an adjective or another adverb.
Il marche rapidement.
He walks quickly.
Je fais du sport régulièrement.
I do sports regularly.
In French, you can find a lot of different adverbs, but the ones you will need for now are the ones ending in -ment.
In English, this is how most adverbs are formed:
| quick | → | quickly |
| glad | → | gladly |
| happy | → | happily |
| probable | → | probably |
The ending -ly is merely added to the adjective. And only minor transformations occur to the adjectives.
In French, the process is almost the same:
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
| grand | grande | grandement |
| heureux | heureuse | heureusement |
| dernier | dernière | dernièrement |
Here it is step by step:
1. Find the adjective you wish to transform into an adverb.
2. Put this adjective into its feminine form.
3. Add the ending -ment to the feminine form of the adjective.
Voilà ! You've created an adverb!
That seems pretty easy, are you sure this is real French grammar?
Mais oui ! Not all grammar is hard ;)