These adverb questions will help you find adverbs!

These adverb questions
will help you find adverbs!

Knowing these adverb questions will help you understand and identify adverbs.

Before we look at the questions, we need to make sure that you remember what adverbs are.

Adverbs modify (describe) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Let's look at what that means.

Adverbs modify verbs.

The baby crawled slowly.

Slowly is an adverb telling us more about the verb crawled.

Adverbs modify adjectives.

Her face is extremely red.

Extremely is an adverb telling us more about the adjective red.

Adverbs modify other adverbs.

The baby crawled very slowly.

Very is an adverb telling us more about the adverb slowly.

What are the adverb questions?

Adverbs usually answer one of the following questions about the verb, adjective, or adverb that they are modifying.

The Adverb Questions

How?

When?

Where?

To what extent?

Why?

Using The Adverb Questions

Now we'll look at some examples of the adverb questions at work. Here we go!

How?

Teachers work very hard.

How do teachers work? hard

Hard is an adverb modifying the verb work.

How hard do teachers work? very

Very is an adverb modifying the adverb hard.

When?

Students study daily.

When do the students study? daily

Daily is an adverb modifying the verb study.

Where? To what extent?

Partially completed assignments go here.

Where do partially completed assignments go? here

Here is an adverb modifying the verb go.

To what extent are the assignments completed? partially

Partially is an adverb modifying the adjective (participle) completed.

Why?

This question is a little bit complicated because it's usually answered by phrases or clauses that are acting as adverbs rather than by one-word adverbs.

Students study to gain knowledge.

Why do students study? to gain knowledge

To gain knowledge is an adverb. It's an infinitive phrase functioning as an adverb, and it's modifying the verb study. All of the words in that phrase (to gain knowledge) are coming together to perform the job of an adverb. Isn't that crazy?

Diagramming Adverbs

Diagramming adverbs helps you see how they modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

Adverbs go on a slanted line under the word that they are modifying.

Here's a sentence diagram of an actual sentence with adverbs.

James ran very quickly.

Quickly is an adverb modifying ran. You can tell that it's modifying ran because it's diagrammed right under the word ran. Very is an adverb modifying quickly. Notice that it's diagrammed under the word it's modifying. Isn't that fun? :)