Formation of adverbs

	Adjective	Adverb
Adjective + -ly	serious	seriously
Adjectives in –le drop the –e and take -y	gentle	gently
Adjectives in consonant + y drop the –y and take -ily	happy	happily
Adjectives in –l take -ly	awful	awfully
Adjectives in –ic take -ally	dramatic	dramatically (but: public-publicly)
Adjectives in –e take -ly	polite	politely (but: true-truly)
Adjectives in –ly use the words way/manner	elderly, cowardly, friendly, likely, deadly, lively, lonely, silly, ugly, lovely, etc.	in a friendly way/manner in a cowardly way/manner
Some adverbs have the same form as adjectives	hard, fast, free, high, low, deep, early, late, long, near, straight, right, wrong, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly	hard, fast, free, high, low, deep, early, late, long, near, straight, right, wrong, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
		deeply(=very), freely(=without limit), highly(=very much), lately(=recently), mostly(=mainly), nearly(=almost), hardly(=almost never)

Comparison of qualitative adverbs

Base Form	Comparative	Superlative
Adverbs which have the same form as the adjectives take –er in the comparative and –est in the superlative
hard friendly	harder in a friendlier way/manner	hardest in a friendliest way/manner
Adverbs formed by adding -ly to the adjectives take more in the comparative and most in the superlative
comfortably	more comfortably	most comfortably

Irregular forms

Base Form	Comparative	Superlative
well badly many, much, a lot of little far late near	better worse more less farther (further) later (the latter) nearer	best worst most least farthest (furthest) the latest (last) the nearest (next)

Fairy – quite – rather – pretty

a/an + fairly	This is a fairly good CD, but it’s not the best they’ve made.
quite + a/an (enough)	This is quite a good CD. You ought to buy it.
quite + adjectives (=completely, totally)	I’m quite certain about this.
rather + a/an, a/an + rather (=more than usual, wanted, etc.)	I expected the book to be boring, but it was rather interesting.
rather + comparative form/too	She spends rather too much money on clothes.
a/an + pretty (=usually in everyday English)	He had a pretty nasty accident the other day.