ADJECTIVES:

Adjectives are words used to describe and provide clarity to accompanying nouns. Using adjectives in sentences helps listeners visualize the details you want to convey

For example, if we say, "Yesterday, I saw a man," you would understand the meaning of the sentence. However, if we change the statement to "Yesterday, I saw a big, fat, hairy man," you would have a more vivid image of the man in the story.

ADVERBS:

Adverbs are words used to modify verbs and often answer questions like how, when, where, why, or inquiries about degree such as how often or how much. For example, "Yesterday, I saw a man running." can be modified to "Yesterday, I saw a man running very slowly."

With the example above, when we add an adverb to the sentence, the perception of the man's running speed changes in the listener's mind. Usually, we can identify adverbs by the -ly suffix in many words. However, we need to be cautious with this rule as it only applies to some adverbs, and there are many adverbs that do not follow this pattern.

Let's look at the example below:

The man is working hard.

The word "hard" is an adverb that enhances the meaning of the verb "working." With the adverb "hard" in the sentence, we have a clearer understanding of the man's work ethic.

You may notice that this word does not follow the traditional rule of having an -ly suffix. The key is to always look at what is being modified or described. What about the following examples? How are the meanings different?

The dog is fast.

The dog ran fast

In the first example, "fast" is an adjective describing the noun "man." In the second example, "fast" is an adverb modifying the verb "ran."

Let's look at another example:

The woman looked angry to us.

The woman looked angrily to us.

In the first example, we are describing the appearance that the woman projected outwardly, associated with a noun, so we use an adjective. But if she looked at us with anger in her eyes, implying that we might have done something wrong, we could use the adverb "angrily" in the second example.

 

With the rules of using adjectives and adverbs mentioned above, you will be able to describe the world around you more quickly and vividly.