Adverbs share a key characteristic with adjectives: You can speak sensibly and form complete sentences without them, but doing so wouldn't be much fun. In this lesson we take a first look at some of the more common adverbs and also look at a common what of expressing "what."
Assignment
Complete the lesson on pages 205-11 of the textbook. To hear the story
in the lesson read, please listen to the audio lesson.
Be sure to complete the exercises. Although copyright rules and fairness
to other students using this book prevent me from publishing all the answers,
you can check the
answer page to see
an answer to the first question in each section to help get you started.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the bulletin board.
Background
This lesson introduces two fairly basic concepts. Here are some more details that you may find handy to know:
Adverbs: Adverbs in Spanish are treated much as they are in English. In both languages, there are numerous common adverbs that follow no discernible pattern and some also may double as other parts of speech.
An example is "much" in English, mucho in Spanish. Adverb: Habla mucho, he talks much. Adjective: Tenemos mucho azúcar, we have much sugar. Various expressions of time (such as ayer, yesterday; hoy, today; and esta semana, this week) also may serve as adverbs.
But far more numerous in both languages are adverbs that are based on adjectives. In English, such adverbs are formed by adding "-ly" to the adjective. Examples include "rapidly," "angrily," and "appropriately." In English, such adverbs are formed by adding -mente to the feminine singular form of the adjective. The preceding adverbs in Spanish are rápidamente, enojadamente, and propiamente.
Typically, adverbs that modify a verb are placed after the verb. Comió rápidamente, she ate quickly. But adverbs that modify an adjective are placed before the adjective. Estoy muy cansada, I'm very tired. Adverbs that modify an entire sentence often go at the beginning of the sentence, but they don't have to. Evidentemente, está enfermo; evidently, he's sick.
Qué: Qué also is often translated as "what" in sentence types other than those given in the textbook. It is often used, for example, in questions about an unknown. ¿Qué es esto? What is this? ¿Qué pasa? What's happening?
Note, however, that in many questions where we use "what" in English the pronoun cuál is used in Spanish, especially when "what" is synonymous with "which." ¿Cuál ciudad es la más bonita? What (which) city is the prettiest? Further instruction on the differences is beyond the scope of this lesson, but you should be able to recognize both qué and cuál when you see them.
Coming up
In the next lesson we'll learn some more about conjugation of present-tense verbs.
Next page > Sample Answers > Page 1, 2
| 