Learning English

A gentle reminder

You know about adjectives and adverbs, don't you?

You know that adjectives describe nouns, and that adverbs give information about a verb…

• Adjectives: Rufus has an expensive car. It has leather seats.
• Adverbs: He drives it very slowly and carefully.

But there's more to adjectives and adverbs than that. In Activity 1 we're going to remind ourselves about the differences between these parts of speech. In Activity 2 we're looking at some irregular examples.

Adjectives – meaning and use

As we've said, adjectives tell us about nouns. They also tell us about pronouns like he, she and it:

• He's very unhappy.
• She's stunning.

Adjectives – Form

Most of them have no particular form, for example:

• Happy, sad, light, green, quick, busy, large

Though some are made by adding a suffix to a noun or verb:

• Fun – funny
• Week - weekly
• Child – childlike
• Fool – foolish
• Care – careful
• Accept – acceptable

Adverbs – meaning and use

You know that adverbs tell us about verbs, but did you know they also tell us about adjectives and other adverbs?

• It was a very sunny day. (The adverb very refers to the adjective sunny. It tells us how sunny it was.)
• He finished the exam really quickly. (The adverb really refers to the adverb quickly. It tells us how quickly he finished.)

Adverbs - form

Many adverbs can be made by adding the suffix –ly to an adjective:

• Sad – sadly
• Serious – seriously
• Quiet – quietly
• Total – totally
• Careful - carefully
• Sleepy - sleepily
• Slow - slowly

But others have no regular structure:

• Soon, well, never, quite, often, already, just

Read the text and complete the activity

Story

Singapore is a very diverse, multicultural country. The biggest ethnic group is Chinese. They make up about 75% of the population. Other significant groups are the Malays and Indians. The country has four official languages: English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, and most Singaporeans speak at least two of them fluently. In addition, a creole called Singlish is spoken widely, though this is officially discouraged by the government. The country has changed very fast in the last few decades as the economy has grown quickly.

Next

Did you notice the word fast in that game? It can be both an adjective and an adverb. We look at a few irregular examples like this in the next activity.