Basic adverbs in French

Adverbs add information about an action, description, or situation. In French, common adverbs can tell you how much, how, where, or when.

This topic introduces some of the adverbs you'll encounter most often and the basic patterns you need to use them.

Adding information to an action

A simple adverb can add information about how, how much, where, or when something happens:

The basic sentence still expresses the action. The adverb adds information about that action.

Saying how you do something

Use adverbs such as bien, mal, vite, and lentement to describe how an action happens.

With these simple sentences, the adverb comes after the verb:

verb + adverb

In Il parle vite, vite tells you how he speaks. In Je dors mal, mal tells you how I sleep.

Saying how much

Use beaucoup, peu, and trop to say how much someone does something.

With a verb, these adverbs usually come after the verb:

verb + beaucoup / peu / trop

The same words can also express an amount of something. In that pattern, use de before the noun:

beaucoup / peu / trop + de + noun

This gives you two useful patterns to recognize: Je travaille beaucoup describes how much someone works, while J'ai beaucoup de travail describes the amount of work someone has.

Using très

Use très with an adjective or another adverb to make its meaning stronger.

très + adjective / adverb

You can use this pattern in complete sentences:

Très and beaucoup do different jobs. Use très with an adjective or adverb, and use beaucoup with a verb:

Do not say J'aime très ce livre to mean "I like this book a lot."

Saying where and when

Some common adverbs tell you where an action happens or place it in time. To say where, you can use:

You can add them to simple sentences without changing their form.

Other adverbs tell you when something happens:

These words let you place familiar actions in time.

Encore can mean "still" or "again" depending on the sentence. At this level, learn the meaning from the context in which you encounter it.

For ways to talk about how often something happens, continue with Expressing frequency.

Adverbs don't change

You may already know that adjectives can change to agree with the person or thing they describe. Adverbs do not change for gender or number.

Compare the adjective lent with the adverb lentement:

Lent changes to lente because the adjective describes a feminine subject. Lentement describes how someone walks, so its form stays the same.

This distinction can help you recognize the job each word is doing. An adjective can describe a person or thing. An adverb can add information about an action, an adjective, or another adverb.

From learning to practice

As you read and listen to French, notice what each adverb adds to the sentence. It may tell you how, how much, where, or when something happens. Pay particular attention to the different patterns in très bien, travaille beaucoup, and beaucoup de travail.