How adverbs are formed in French- French Grammar

 

1 The basic rules

• Adverbs in French never change their form, no matter what they refer to.

Il est très beau.	He’s very handsome.
Elles sont très belles.	They’re very beautiful.
J’y vais souvent.	I often go there.
Nous y allons souvent.	We often go there.

• Note that there is one exception to this rule. The word tout changes in certain phrases, for example, tout seul (meaning all alone).

Il est arrivé tout seul.	He arrived on his own.
Elle est souvent toute seule.	She’s often on her own.

• Many English adverbs end in -ly, which is added to the end of the adjective (quick → quickly; sad → sadly; frequent → frequently). In French, many adverbs end in -ment. This is usually added to the end of the feminine singular form of the adjective.

Masculine adjective	Feminine adjective	Adverb	Meaning
heureux	heureuse	heureusement	fortunately
doux	douce	doucement	gently, slowly
seul	seule	seulement	only

• The adverb ending -ment is added to the masculine not the feminine form of the adjective if the masculine ends in -é, -i or -u.

Masculine adjective	Feminine adjective	Adverb	Meaning
désespéré	désespérée	désespérément	desperately
vrai	vraie	vraiment	truly
absolu	absolue	absolument	absolutely

• If the adjective ends in -ant, the adverb ends in -amment. If the adjective ends in -ent, the adverb ends in -emment. The first vowel in the -emment and -amment endings is pronounced in the same way in both – like the a in the English word cat.

• courant → couramment (fluently)
• récent → récemment (recently)

• Note that an exception to this rule is the adverb lentement (meaning slowly), which comes from the adjective lent (meaning slow).

2 Irregular adverbs

• There are a number of common irregular adverbs.

Adjective	Meaning	Adverb	Meaning
bon	good	bien	well
gentil	nice, kind	gentiment	nicely, kindly
mauvais	bad	mal	badly
meilleur	better, best	mieux	better
petit	small	peu	little
pire	worse	pis	worse

Elle travaille bien.	She works well.
C’est un emploi très mal payé.	It’s a very badly paid job.

3 Adjectives used as adverbs

• Certain adjectives are used as adverbs, mostly in set phrases:

• bon good
  sentir bon to smell nice
• cher expensive
  coûter cher to be expensive
  payer cher to pay a lot
• droit straight
  aller tout droit to go straight on
• dur hard
  travailler dur to work hard
• fort loud
  parler plus fort to speak up
• mauvais bad
  sentir mauvais to smell

4 Adverbs made up of more than one word

• Adverbs can be made up of several words instead of just one. Here are some common ones:

bien sûr	of course
c’est-à-dire	that is
d’abord	first
d’habitude	usually
de temps en temps	from time to time
en général	usually
en retard	late
tout de suite	straight away

Key points

• With the exception of tout, French adverbs do not change their form.
• The ending -ment is usually added to the feminine singular form of the corresponding adjective.
• If the masculine singular adjective ends in -é, -i or -u, the -ment ending is added to that.
• If the adjective ends in -ant or -ent, the adverb ends in -amment or -emment (apart from lentement).