French Adverbs of Manner
Adverbes de manière
Adverbs of manner explain how something happens.
The majority of French adverbs of manner end in -ment, which is usually equivalent to the English ending -ly. These adverbs are formed from French adjectives, as follows:
| I. | If the French adjective ends in a vowel, add -ment to form the adverb | |||
| Adjective | French adverb | English translation | ||
| absolu admirable nécessaire passionné poli rude vrai |
absolument admirablement nécessairement passionnément poliment rudement vraiment |
absolutely admirably necessarily passionately politely roughly truly |
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| II. | If the French adjective ends in a consonant, add -ment to the feminine form | |||
| Masculine adj | Feminine adjective | French adverb | English translation | |
| amical éventuel franc normal premier rapid sérieux vif |
amicale éventuelle franche normale première rapide sérieuse vive |
amicalement éventuellement franchement normalement premièrement rapidement sérieusement vivement |
in a friendly way possibly frankly normally firstly rapidly seriously sharply, deeply |
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| Exceptions: | ||||
| bref gentil |
brève gentille |
brièvement gentiment |
briefly kindly |
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| I/IIa. | Rules I and II ensure that French adverbs have a vowel immediately preceding the -ment ending. The following adverbs follow one of the above rules, but require an acute accent on this vowel: | |||
| aveugle commun conforme énorme intense obscur précis profond uniforme |
aveuglément communément conformément énormément intensément obscurément précisément profondément uniformément |
blindly commonly in accordance enormously intensely obscurely precisely profoundly uniformly |
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| III. | If the French adjective ends in -ant or -ent, remove the ending and add -amment or -emment | |||
| Adjective | French adverb | English translation | ||
| apparent bruyant constant intelligent patient suffisant |
apparemment bruyamment constamment intelligemment patiemment suffisamment |
apparently loudly constantly intelligently patiently sufficiently |
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| Exception: | ||||
| lent | lentement | slowly | ||
| Irregular adverbs | ||||
| bref | brièvement | briefly | ||
| gentil | gentiment | kindly | ||
There are a few French adverbs of manner that don't end in -ment:
| ainsi | thus |
| bien | well |
| debout | standing up |
| exprès | on purpose |
| mal | poorly, badly |
| mieux | better |
| pire | worse |
| vite | quickly |
| volontiers | gladly |
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Types and Placement of French Adverbs |
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