Italian adverbs

Italian adverbs list

Adverbs (gli avverbi) generally add a piece of information about the main verb.

Adverbs are used to describe:

• how an action is done (adverbs of manner);
• when an action is done (adverbs of time);
• where an action happens (adverbs of place);
• a quantity (adverbs of quantity)
• other useful infomation (adverbs of confirmation, doubt, negation)

Italian adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner are used to express how an action is carried out.

 Most adverbs of manner are formed by adding the suffix -mente to a qualifying adjective. -mente could roughly correspond to -ly.

Note that some spelling changes may occur and the final adverb form could vary.
 

Italian adverbs of Time and Frequency

These adverbs are invariable and add a temporal specification.

Italian adverbs of Place

Adverbs of place pinpoint a location. They are all invariable.

Italian adverbs of Quantity

Adverbs of quantity add information about an amount, a scale. They are invariable.

Italian affirmation and negation adverbs

This category of adverbs is particularly useful to express an opinion.

Italian adverbs of doubt, interrogative/exclamative

With the following adverbs it's possible to express an uncertainty and ask questions.

Italian adverbial phrases (expressions with adverbs)

An adverbial phrase is a construction of two or more words that act as an adverb.
These expressions are very common in everyday language.

Examples include: A piedi (on foot), A sinistra (on the left), Così e così (So and so)
 

Comparative and superlative adverbs

Comparative and superlative constructions are used to make comparisons between two or more terms.

There are three kinds of comparatives.

There are also two kinds of superlatives.

Position of adverbs in a sentence

There are no fixed rules to define the position of adverbs.
Their spot in a sentence can change; an adverb can emphasise a specific part of the sentence according to the speaker's communicative intentions.

 We could say that if an adverb directly modifies the verb, it's located closer to it.
If an adverb modifies the whole sentence, it's generally further from the verb.

Check out the following examples.
Ieri siamo andati al cinema. (We went to the cinema yesterday.)
Siamo andati al cinema ieri. (We [already] went to the cinema yesterday.)

Italian adverbs vs adjectives

There is one substantial difference between adverbs and adjectives.

 Adverbs add information to the verb and are unvariable, while adjectives add information to the
noun and agree in gender and number with it.

Take a look at the following examples: