Study Resource: Position of English adverbs of different types

By: revel arroway

The table below summarizes where you can put different types of adverbs in English sentences.

	Before the clause	Before the verb*	After the verb**	After the clause	Before an adjective	Before an adverb	Before a prepositional phrase	Before a gerund	After a gerund
Adverb of frequency	often	YES	NO (except be)	often	NO	NO	NO	YES	YES (with exceptions)
Adverb of time	YES	often (relative)	often (relative)	YES	rarely (if they come from verbs)	NO	NO	NO	NO
Adverb of duration	rarely	YES	YES	rarely	sometimes (if they come from verbs)	NO	NO	rarely	NO
Adverb of manner	rarely	YES (with exceptions)	YES	rarely	YES (if they come from verbs)	NO	NO	NO	YES (if they come from verbs)
Adverb of degree	NO	YES	NO (except be)	NO	YES	YES	YES	NO	NO
Adverb of place	only emphasis	NO	YES	NO	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES
Adverb of direction	only emphasis	NO	YES	NO	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES

Notes:

*An adverb that comes before the verb will usually come between the auxiliary verb and the main verb: I have often forgotten his name.
**An adverb that comes after the verb will also follow the objects of the verb: I am reading my book slowly.

The types of English adverbs with examples:

Adverb of Frequency → How often something happens (usually, often, rarely, sometimes, never, always...)
Adverb of Time → When something happens (now, then, today, yesterday, tomorrow, late, early, recently, just...)
Adverb of Duration → How long something lasts (permanently, forever, since, still, briefly, always)
Adverb of Manner → How or in what way something happens (quickly, loudly, slowly, angrily, together, comfortably...)
Adverb of Degree → How intensely something happened or was some way (really, very, a bit, more, less, definitely, way...)
Adverb of Place → Where something happened (here, there, upstairs, outside, everywhere, somewhere...)
Adverb of Direction → Which way something moved (here, there, over, around, downstairs, inside, up, out...)

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