More About Spanish Adverbs - Learn Word Order and Use of Very

Read this article to improve your skills with Spanish adverbs. This lesson continues to teach you about adverbs and picks up where the adverb introduction left off. In the adverb introduction, you learned that just as we use the "ly" ending to make adverbs in English, you use the suffix -mente at the end of Spanish adjectives to make them into adverbs. This method works great and is the most popular way to make adverbs in Spanish -- But it has one problem...

As you can see, the words with the -mente suffix get quite long. -- That's why it's common in Spanish to hear people say "con cuidado" instead of saying the word with the mente suffix -- cuidadosamente. Notice how the word con (with) acts like a "helper word" to complete the phrase.

In the same way, instead of hearing rapidamente -- you'll often hear the phrase "con rapidez".

You can also use the helper word sin (without) to form adverbs like these:

Using the helper-word sin to Make Adverbs

Spanish	English
sin cuidado	carelessly
sin vergüenza	shameless

Be aware of the use of the adverb "very"

In English, we sometimes use the word very by itself like this -- Are you very tired?. and the answer can be: Yes, very. You should be aware that this isn't done in Spanish -- For this situation, the Spanish word mucho is used instead.

Here is the example again in Spanish: ¿estas cansado? -- Si, mucho!

Word Order Switch

You ought to be aware of the way the word order changes from the English way in the adverb examples below. Notice the word order is the reverse of English...

Word-order switch

Spanish	English
todavia no	not yet
con el no	not with him
mañana no	not tomorrow

Very Much

We commonly say very much in English but you'll want to avoid saying "muy mucho" in Spanish -- The way to say very much in Spanish is with the word muchisimo.