French Adverbs

French Adverbs

adverbs ending:

French Adverbs usually add (-ment) to their feminine adjective form, the equivalent of (-ly) in English, for example: the adjective slow in French is (lent for masculine, and lente for feminine) now we only need the feminine to form an adverb, we will add (-ment) to it, so (slowly) would be (lentement). Easy!

Well there are some exceptions though, like if an adjective ends in an (i), then (-ment) is added to the masculine singular form, instead of to the feminine singular form: poli becomes poliment (politely)

If the adjective ends in (-ant) or (-ent), then the adverb ends in (-amment) or (-emment) which will be added to the root, and not to the whole adjective:

récent becomes récemment (recently)

Some other adjectives make odd adverbs like: gentil becomes gentiment (nicely).

Just like in English, not all the time an adverb has (-ly) at the end. And so is the case in French, some adverbs take an irregular form like:

bon becomes bien (well), mauvais becomes mal (badly)

The position of an adverb is almost like the position of an adjective sometimes it comes before or after the element it modifies. An adverb that modifies an adjective or adverb comes before that adjective or adverb. J'ai été immédiatement convaincu … (I was immediately convinced…).

When the adverb is modifying a verb, it is placed after the verb: J’ai bien domi (I slept well).


The list below contains many irregular adverbs as well as regular ones, but note that the irregular adverbs are the most used, so they would come handy if you memorize them by heart:

List of French Adverbs: