Hello everyone! Welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast! This is episode number 141, numéro 141.
In this episode, we’re talking about adverbs. I’m going to first spend a little bit of time explaining what adverbs are, and then I’ll give you 10 adverbs to learn, and today we’ll focus specifically adverbs of frequency.
Now, as usual, before we start our lesson, if you're new to the podcast, welcome! Make sure you have your lesson's cheat sheet in front of you, so you can listen to the words and see how they are written. And when you finish this lesson, you can head over to the French Made Easy Exercise Library to download your lesson's exercises and practice what you've learned today. You'll find all the download links in the episode notes on your podcast platform.
Alright, let’s get started. What are adverbs?
Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire sentences. They really give more information about how, when, where, and to what extent actions take place.
Let me give you some examples, so you can see exactly how adverbs actually give more information.
For example:
- Elle parle lentement. (She speaks slowly.) [Here, the adverb “lentement” modify the conjugated verb “parler”, the adverb ‘lentement’ tells us how she is speaking—she’s not speaking fast, she’s speaking slowly.]
- Il est très gentil. (He is very kind.) [Here, the adverb “très”, modify the adjective “gentil”, the adverb ‘très’ tells us how kind he is—he’s not a little bit kind, he’s very kind.]
- Il travaille assez rapidement. (He works quite quickly.) [Here the adverb “assez” modify the other adverb rapidement— assez tells us how quickly he’s working, he’s not working very quickly, or just quickly, he’s working quite quickly.
- Ils ont déménagé à Paris récemment. (They moved to Paris recently.) [Here, the adverb "récemment" modifies the entire sentence, it tells us when they moved—they didn’t move to Paris a long time ago, they move to Paris recently.]
Alright, now that you understand the role of adverbs, let me share with you the main types of adverbs (and I’m not going to go into detail about all of them today, but we’ll talk about it in future episodes.)
- Adverbs of manner,
- Adverbs of time,
- Adverbs of frequency (which also fits inside the “adverbs of time category”, but for teaching purposes, it’s easier to separate them.)
- Adverbs of place,
- Adverbs of intensity/quantity
Today, we’ll focus specifically on adverbs of frequency, which tell us how often something happens. For example: Paul va rarement au cinéma. (Paul rarely goes to the cinema.) Here, the adverb “souvent” adds more information about the verb. It tells us how often Paul goes to the cinema. Does he go often? never? Occasionally? no, he rarely goes to the cinema.
Alright. Now, let's learn the 10 most common adverbs of frequency in French, which are very useful to talk about how often something is happening.
- Toujours (always): Elle arrive toujours à l'heure. (She always arrives on time.)
- Souvent (often): Nous mangeons souvent au restaurant. (We often eat at the restaurant.)
- Parfois (sometimes): Je vais parfois courir le matin. (I sometimes go running in the morning.)
- Rarement (rarely): Elle regarde rarement la télévision. (She rarely watches television.)
- Jamais (never): Il ne mange jamais de gâteau. (He never eats cake.)
- Occasionnellement (occasionally): On va occasionnellement au cinéma. (We go to the cinema occasionally.)
- Fréquemment (frequently): Elle appelle ses parents fréquemment. (She calls her parents frequently.)
- De temps en temps (from time to time): Nous rendons visite à nos grands-parents de temps en temps. (From time to time, we visit our grandparents.)
- Régulièrement (regularly): Elle fait du yoga régulièrement. (She does yoga regularly.)
- Constamment (constantly): Il parle constamment pendant les films. (He constantly talks during movies.)
Alright, let’s do a quick recap of all of this adverbs:
- Toujours (always)
- Souvent (often)
- Parfois (sometimes)
- Rarement (rarely)
- Jamais (never)
- Occasionnellement (occasionally)
- Fréquemment (frequently)
- De temps en temps (from time to time)
- Régulièrement (regularly)
- Constamment (constantly)
Et voilà, that’s the end of today’s episode! I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll have more episodes on this topic. Now, go and practice those adverbs inside the French Made Easy Exercise Library! It’s free, and the links are in the episode notes, on your podcast platform.
À la semaine prochaine! See you next week.
