As a reminder from our adjective lesson, French adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. For example:
“Dogs eat noisily.” / “They’re very small.” / “He ran away really quickly.”
How to Form French Adverbs
The ending –ment in French is almost a direct equivalent to the –ly ending in English, and many adjectives that can be turned into adverbs by adding -ly in English can be created by adding –ment to the end in French. For example:
rapide (adjective) → rapidement (adverb)
timide (adjective) → timidement (adverb)
lent (adjective) → lentement (adverb)
Where to position French adverbs in sentences
In English, you have some freedom in where to position adverbs in sentences. There may be a preferred location for certain sentence constructions, but there usually isn’t a truly incorrect place to place the adverb. For example:
“Quietly, she laughed.” / “She quietly laughed.” / “She laughed quietly.”
None of the above versions is wrong, though one may sound “more correct” to your ears.
However, with French adverbs, there is a specific place they go, depending on the type of adverb and what it’s modifying.
General French Adverbs Positioning Rule
In most cases, the adverb will go right after the verb (meaning the full verb phrase if it’s a compound verb structure). So working from that as the baseline assumption, here are some specific adverb placement rules to learn.
#1: Adverbs of Frequency
Adverbs that describe how often something happens (such as toujours, rarement, immédiatement, etc. go after the verb, even in compound (two-part) verb structures such as passé composé).
Special frequency adverbs
- Souvent falls under the “short adverbs category” described below.
- Parfois usually goes at the beginning of the sentence.
#2: Short adverbs
Short adverbs, like mal, bien and souvent (and no, I don’t know why souvent goes here instead of with the frequency adverbs, either), go right after the verb in simple verb tenses, just like you’d expect. However, with compound verb tenses, they go between the conjugated verb and the past participle.
#3:”Time” Adverbs
Adverbs of specific days, such as aujourd’hui and demain, got at either the beginning or end of the sentence.
This rule shouldn’t be too difficult to remember, because it’s generally how we would say it in English, as well.
#4: Long Adverbs
Like the “time” adverbs, long adverbs also generally go at the beginning or end of a sentence. This structure is sometimes different from how many people would structure the sentence in English, but the idea is to not “confuse” the main part of the sentence with a long, multi-syllable adverb, and instead stick it at the beginning or end of a sentence, separated by a comma.
#5: Adverbs that Modify Adjectives or Other Adverbs
This last French adverb rule is really easy, because it’s exactly the same way in English—you put the adverb in front of the other adverb or adjective it’s modifying. In other words, place the “main” adverb (the one that refers directly to the verb) in its place, then just place any other adverbs right in front of it.
What next?
That’s it for adverb grammar rules in French! Make sure you know the French adjective grammar rules as well, and you might want to check out our list of 45 French adverbs.
