LEARN FRENCH ADVERBS

French Adverbs

French Adverbs usually add (-ment) to their feminine adjective form, the equivalent of (-ly) in English, for example: the adjective slow in French is (lent for masculine, and lente for feminine) now we only need the feminine to form an adverb, we will add (-ment) to it, so (slowly) would be (lentement). Easy!

Well there are some exceptions though, like if an adjective ends in an (i), then (-ment) is added to the masculine singular form, instead of to the feminine singular form: poli becomes poliment (politely)

If the adjective ends in (-ant) or (-ent), then the adverb ends in (-amment) or (-emment) which will be added to the root, and not to the whole adjective:

récent becomes récemment (recently)

Some other adjectives make odd adverbs like: gentil becomes gentiment (nicely).

Just like in English, not all the time an adverb has (-ly) at the end. And so is the case in French, some adverbs take an irregular form like:

bon becomes bien (well), mauvais becomes mal (badly).

The position of an adverb is almost like the position of an adjective sometimes it comes before or after the element it modifies. An adverb that modifies an adjective or adverb comes before that adjective or adverb. J'ai été immédiatement convaincu … (I was immediately convinced…).

When the adverb is modifying a verb, it is placed after the verb: J’ai bien domi (I slept well).

The list below contains many irregular adverbs as well as regular ones, but note that the irregular adverbs are the most used, so they would come handy if you memorize them by heart:

List of French Adverbs
endlessly	à l'infini	in front	devant	quite a few	pas mal de
barely	à peine	down	en bas	little by little	petit à petit
currently	actuellement	up	en haut	may be	peut-être
elsewhere	ailleurs	on the way of doing sthg	en train de	worse	pire
thus	ainsi	again	encore	more	plus (de)
then	alors	at last	enfin	previously	précédemment
apparently	apparemment	enormously	énormément	precisely	précisément
after	après	next	ensuite	first	premièrement
today	aujourd'hui	on purpose	exprès	near	près
previously	auparavant	frankly	franchement	almost	presque
immediately	aussitôt	kindly	gentiment	profoundly	profondément
around	autour	yesterday	hier	then	puis
in the past	autrefois	here	ici	somewhere	quelque part
before	avant	immediately	immédiatement	sometimes	quelquefois
a lot (of)	beaucoup (de)	intensely	intensément	rapidly	rapidement
well	bien	never	jamais	rarely	rarement
soon	bientôt	there	là	recently	récemment
briefly	brièvement	the majority of	la majorité (de)	seriously	sérieusement
how many/ much	combien (de)	most	la plupart de	often	souvent
constantly	constamment	over there	là-bas	sufficiently	suffisamment
first	d'abord	slowly	lentement	especially	surtout
besides	d'ailleurs	far away	loin	late	tard
early	de bonne heure	for a long time	longtemps	early	tôt
standing up	debout	now	maintenant	always	toujours
inside	dedans	poorly, badly	mal	suddenly	tout à coup
outside	dehors	better	mieux	a little while ago	tout à l'heure
already	déjà	less (than)	moins (de)	immediately	tout de suite
tomorrow	demain	naturally	naturellement	very	très
since	depuis	anywhere	n'importe où	too much/ many	trop (de)
lately	dernièrement	anytime	n'importe quand	little of	un peu (de)
behind	derrière	nowhere	nulle part	quickly	vite
from now	désormais	sometimes	parfois	deeply	vivement
below	dessous	everywhere	partout	willingly	volontiers
above	dessus

French Advebs, adverbs ending, French advebs list.