Spanish Adverbs

Overall, an adverb is a word that complements or can modify a verb, an adjective or even other adverbs. Adverbs are divided according to the change they perform in a sentence. In the following lesson, you will learn about the different types of adverbs in Spanish and how to use them properly.

In previous lessons you learned how to describe people, places and things through the use of descriptive words called adjectives. These include words like bonito (pretty), lento (slow), gordo (fat), etcétera.

You can also describe actions in a similar way. Instead of adjectives, you will use adverbs. Examples of adverbs include rápidamente (quickly), lentamente (slowly), suavemente (softly), et cetera. These words describe how an action is taking place and may refer to a variety of characteristics.

The majority of adverbs in English end in –ly. Think of words like loudly, roughly, carefully, completely, or hastily.

Fortunately, Spanish has an equivalent of the –ly ending in English:

-mente

It is easier to use adverbs than adjectives in Spanish. Why? Well, while adjectives change according to the gender and quantity of the noun they describe, adverbs don’t change at all. The same adverb form applies to all verbs, indiscriminately!

You can form an adverb from almost any adjective in Spanish. All you have to do is take the feminine form of the adjective and add –mente to the end. Here are some examples.

adjective	=	feminine form	+	-mente	=	adverb
absoluto - absolute		absoluta		absolutamente		absolutely
lento – slow		lenta		lentamente		slowly
rápido – fast		rápida		rápidamente		quickly
suave – soft		(no change)		suavemente		softly

Adverbs that Describe How an Action Occurs

You will find some adverbs in Spanish that don’t look much like their English equivalents, but are used quite frequently. You need to memorize the following adverbs, because you will hear them often.

Me lo sé de memoria.

I know it by memory.

El terremoto sucedió de golpe.

The earthquake happened suddenly.

Carmen se puso la camiseta al revés.

Carmen put her t-shirt on backwards.

Lo hicimos a escondidas.

We did it secretly.

De repente sonó la alarma.

Suddenly, the alarm rang out.

Adverbs that Describe When an Action Occurs

If you wish to describe how often or when an action occurs, you may wish to use one of the following adverbs.

a menudo	often	al fin	at last, in the end, finally
a tiempo	on time	de día	during daytime
a veces	sometimes	de noche	during nighttime
al anochecer	at night	de vez en cuando	once in a while

Por ejemplo:

Comemos carne de vez en cuando.

We eat meat once in a while.

A veces vamos a la playa después de estudiar.

Sometimes we go to the beach after studying.

Al fin podía entrar en la universidad.

At last, I was able to enter the university.

Adverbs that Describe Where an Action Occurs

If you wish to describe where an action occurs, you may wish to use one of the following adverbs.

a la derecha	to the right	en ninguna parte	nowhere
a la izquierda	to the left	en otra parte	elsewhere, somewhere else
de arriba a bajo	from top to bottom	en todas partes	everywhere
en casa	at home	por aquí	around here, this way