Think of adverbs as modifiers: they modify elements of a sentence (verbs, adjectives, other adverbs). Adverbs answer questions such as "where?", "when?", "how long?", "how much?", or just "how?".
Spanish adverbs are easy to spot, because many of them of them have the ending "-mente", which is similar to the English ending "-ly". Because adverbs don´t modify nouns or pronouns (that is the adjectives job) , you don´t have to worry about gender or number agreement.
Adverbs of quantity intensify or moderate the meaning of the verb or other element.
- Él ha estudiado mucho. (He has studied a lot.)
- Juan está muy contento. (Juan is very happy.)
- ¡Jaime es tan terco! (Jaime is so hard-headed!
- No es bueno que comas tanto. (It´s not good for you too eat that much.)
Adverbs of quantity |
bastante |
enough |
demasiado |
too much |
mucho |
much, a lot |
poco |
little |
algo |
somewhat |
menos |
less |
nada |
not at all |
tanto |
so much |
apenas |
hardly |
sólo |
only |
- "Tan" y "tanto":
"Tan" is used with adjectives, adverbs and participles. "Tanto" is used with verbs. Note the placement:
- ¡Miguel es tan bueno! (Miguel is so good!)
- ¡No grites tanto! (Don´t yell too much!)
- "Muy" and "mucho":
"Muy" is used with adjectives, "mucho" is used with verbs.
- Estamos muy contentos. (We are very happy.)
- Está lloviendo mucho. (It´s raining a lot.)
- "Más" o"¨menos" come before the noun:
- No comas más chocolate. (Don´t eat more chocolate.)
- No comas ni un chocolate más. (Don´t eat one more chocolate.)
|
