Adverbes

FRENCH ADVERBS

Les adverbes

When learning French, you will come across adverbs sooner or later. This is a filler category of French grammar that is combined with vocabulary as well as grammar.

What are french adverbs?

Que sont les adverbes ?

Adverbs (les adverbes) change the meaning of other words : verbs, nouns, adjectives, or even other adverbs… It’s a category of words that is very different and connects the French language.

Another thing is that all adverbs are invariable in gender and in plurality.

Adverbs are generally classified according to their meaning : adverbs of cunjunction, quantity, place, time, affirmation, negation, interrogation, logical relationship, mood.

Also, we can produce adverbs from adjectives, called derivation.

French adverbs of quantity

Les adverbes de quantité

French adverbs of place

Les adverbes de lieu

Adverbs of place, obviously, give geographical indications and answer the question « where ? »

French adverbs of time

Les adverbes de temps

The adverbs of  basically answer the question « when ? » and give an indication of the position in time, or of chronology.

French adverbs of logical relationship

Les adverbes de relation logique

The adverbs of logical relationship have the role of expressing any idea of cause, consequence, opposition… They don’t answer to a question in particular, or maybe « why ? » or « how ? »

French adverbs of cunjunction

Les adverbes de liaison

The adverbs of conjunction play the role of linking sentences together, and as such, they can modify the meaning of a whole sentence.

French adverbs of affirmation

Les adverbes d’affirmation

Adverbs of affirmation are used to affirm something or to back it up. They also can serve to minimize a statement, or express a doubt about its truth or realization.  As such, they would answer the question « really ? »

French adverbs of negation

Les adverbes de négation

As it should be, adverbs of negation are used to make negative sentences. In this sense, they are almost always part of an adverbial locution.

French adverbs of interrogation

Les adverbes d’interrogation

Quite simply, the adverbs of interrogation are used to ask question.

French adverbs of modality

Les adverbes de modalité

The adverbs of modality carry a sense of subjectivity, and as such they inform about the mood or attitude of the person who is speaking about what he is saying without stating any actual fact.

Adverbs derived from adjectives

Les adverbes dérivés des adjectifs

Most adjectives can be transformed into adverbs, with the intention to modify the meaning of another word. To do so, we add the suffix –ment to the end of the feminine form of the adjective.

Indeed, an example will be very helpful here :

• long(long, adjective, m.)
  → longue (long, adjective, f.)
  → longuement (at length, adverb)
• Il m’a parlé longuementde sa jeunesse.
  = He told me of his childhood at length.

Sometimes, a little modification is necessary. Firstly, and to the exception of lent (slow) and présent (present), the adjective already ending in -ent or -ant have their adverbial form in –emment or –amment (and in both cases it is pronounced the same, e.g. –amment) :

• méchant(mean) → méchamment (meanly)
• récent(recent)→ récemment (recently)
• but : présentement, lentement

Also, some adjectives that already end in -e at the masculine form take an accent when derived :

• intense(intense) → intensément (intensely)

Finally, a few adjectives derive into an exceptionally formed adverb.

• bon(good) → bien (good)
• fou(crazy) → follement (crazily)
• mou(soft) → mollement (softly)
• bref(brief) → brièvement (briefly)
• mauvais(bad) → mal (badly)
• impuni(unpunished) → impunément (with impunity)