Adverbs in French function the same way that adverbs in English do: they’re used to modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. In this post we’ll give a thorough overview of French adverbs.

First off, we’ll start with a quick review of what is an adverb, followed by a section on French sentence structure when using adverbs.

Through the rest of the post we’ll cover the various classes of adverbs in French, including a list of French adverbs in each category. With plenty of examples in both languages, by the end of this post you’ll be well on your way to recognizing and using a wide selection of adverbs in French!

What is an adverb?

First of all, let’s start off with a quick refresher on adverbs: these descriptive words are used to provide detail by modifying other words in a sentence. Unlike adjectives, they’re not used to modify nouns, but rather modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. When used, they can provide information about where, when, or how things are done.

Let’s see some of these uses of adverbs through some examples about playing soccer. If you want to let someone know how often, when, where, or how someone plays soccer, you’ll probably use an adverb.

• Je joue bien au foot. – I play soccer well.

• Je joue au foot mieux que mon ami. – I play soccer better than my friend.

• Je joue souvent au foot. – I play soccer often.

In these first examples, the adverbs are modifying the verb, jouer: to play. They are telling us more about how one plays.

In addition to modifying verbs, remember that adverbs can modify adjectives too:

• Je joue tellement bien. – I play so well.

• Je suis très douée. – I am very skilled.

In these examples, the adverbs are modifying the adjectives bien and douée. In this instance, the adverbs are employed to describe how good I am at soccer.

Now, take a look at instances of adverbs being used to modify other adverbs:

• Je joue très bien au foot. – I play soccer very well.

• Je cours extrèmement rapidement. – I run extremely fast.

In these examples, repectiveley, bien and rapidement are adverbs modifying the verbs jouer and courir, while très and extrèmement modify the first adverbs. How do I play soccer? Well. How well? Very well. How do I run? Fast. How fast? Extremely fast.

Where are adverbs usually placed in a sentence?

Now that we’re clear on what an adverb is, we’re ready to look at sentence structure when using adverbs in French. Placement of the adverb depends on whether it modifies a verb, or if it’s modifying an adjective or another adverb.

Sentence structure: French adverbs modifying verbs

In general, when a French adverb modifies a verb it comes after that verb.

• Je parle rarement à mon grand-père depuis son déménagement. – I rarely speak to my grandfather since his move.

Although this is the most common placement for French adverbs modifying verbs, we can also place adverbs at the beginning or end of a phrase in contexts where it’s still clear they’re referring to the verb.

• Maintenant, je suis en train de préparer le dîner. – Now, I am in the middle of preparing dinner.

• S’il vous plaît, apportez nos boissons d’abord. – Please, bring us our drinks first.

Sentence structure: French adverbs modifying adjectives or other adverbs

When a French adverb describes or modifies an adjective or another adverb, it always appears before the adjective or adverb it’s describing.

• Ce cambrioleur était moins intelligent que la police. – The burglar was less intelligent than the police.

• Le film est sorti très récemment. – The film came out very recently.

French adverbs ending in -ment

Did you notice that several of the French adverbs we’ve seen in our examples so far end in -ment? Like with the examples we’ve seen so far of tellement, extrèmement, rapidement, and rarement, many French adverbs end in -ment. This form is comparable to in English, where you simply add -ly to many adjectives so they become adverbs.

• Wolverines are rare in North America. Even researchers rarely see them in the Rocky Mountains.

Many French adjectives can also become adverbs by adding an ending. This ending is –ment.

• Le patient était difficile, mais l’infirmière était patiente avec lui. Elle l’attendait patiemment pendant qu’il prenait sa douche. – The patient was difficult, but the nurse was patient with him. She waited for him patiently while he took his shower.

Note that this group of French adverbs is based on their word construction, in contrast to the other groupings we introduce in the next sections. When classified based on their use, you’ll see French -ment adverbs in many of the various adverb groups.

List of common French adverbs ending in -ment

Thanks to this -ment adverb form we’ve just introduced, you’re likely to recognize a lot of adverbs easily if you already know some French adjectives. Let’s take a look at our first list of French adverbs, in which we also include the corresponding French adjectives.

Adverbs of frequency

French adverbs of frequency are used exactly as their name suggests: to describe how often an action happens. Thus, they are really only used to modify verbs.

• Je pense toujours à toi. –  I think of you always.

• Jamais je n’oublierai ton sourire. – I’ll never forget your smile.

List of French adverbs of frequency

Since their use is so common in French conversation, adverbs of frequency are themselves words of high-frequency and thus very useful to know.

Adverbs of quantity

Similarly to adverbs of frequency, adverbs of quantity help us describe how much or how many.  This category is used to describe verbs as well as adjectives and adverbs.

• J’ai trop mangé. – I ate too much.

• Ces oranges sont plus chers. – These oranges are more expensive.

• Ma mère joue beaucoup moins aux cartes maintenant. – My mother plays cards a lot less now.

In the last example we stack two adverbs of quantity: moins modifies the verb jouer to describe the frequency that she plays (less), while beaucoup modifies the adverb moins to describe how much less (a lot).

List of French adverbs of quantity

This category of adverbs in French also includes many high-frequency words that will help improve your French fluency.

Adverbs such as plus, moins, and aussi are also known as comparative adverbs.

Adverbs of manner

Adverbs of manner give us information about how a particular action happens. Many of the –ment adverbs are adverbs of manner.

• J’ai couru rapidement quand le bus est arrivé. – I ran quickly when the bus arrived.

• Mon père joue mal au volley. – My father plays volleyball badly.

List of French adverbs of manner

Adverbs of time

It’s pretty clear what information adverbs of time provide: they tell us when a certain action is happening.

• Je peux regarder la télé après avoir mangé. – I can watch TV after having eaten.

• Si tu finis tôt, viens nous trouver au bar. – If you finish early, come find us at the bar.

List of French adverbs of time

This list of adverbs also includes very useful French words that are taught early in a French language course due to the frequency in which they’re used in daily conversation. You may already know many of these words, but just never knew they were adverbs.

Adverbs of place

This category of adverbs tells us where an action is happening. You may already be familiar with many of these adverbs since they can be used on their own as prepositions. We include them here because when a preposition of place modifies a verb it acts as an adverb.

• Les enfants jouent dehors quand il fait beau. – The children play outside when it is nice out.

• En Périgord, les champignons poussent partout. – In the Périgord region, mushrooms grow everywhere.

List of French adverbs of place

Here’s a concise list of French adverbs of place to get you started. For more prepositions, check out our full blog post on prepositions in French.

Comparative and superlative adverbs

There are a few other categories of French adverbs including comparative adverbs, interrogative adverbs, and negative adverbs.

Comparative and superlative adverbs modify verbs and adjectives to make comparisons between different objects in a sentence.

Comparatives in French are generally accompanied by the word que, which is equivalent to as or than in English.

• Ma grande sœur est plus petite que moi. – My older sister is shorter than me.

Here the comparative adverb, plus, modifies the adjective petite. (In English you say “shorter” rather than “more short.”)

• Parmi nos amis, elle s’entraîne le plus. – Among my friends, she trains the most.

In this example, the superlative adverb, le plus is used to modify the verb s’entraîner: to train.

List of French comparative and superlative adverbs

French comparatives and superlatives are often taught separately, so you may not have thought of them as adverbs before. Like with other groups like the adverbs of place we saw above, it’s all about how a word is used in a sentence: if it modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, it’s acting as an adverb.

Interrogative adverbs

Did you know that question words like comment, quand, pourquoi, and où can also act as adverbs? While they don’t necessarily provide details about how, when, where, or how often, they do allow you to request that information in a question.

• Quand est-ce que tu veux manger ? Tôt ou tard ? – When do you want to eat? Early or late?

We’ll say it again: when a word is used to modify a verb, it’s acting as an adverb. In this question, the verb being modified is manger: to eat. (What’s more, in addition to quand, it’s being modified by two adverbs of time as well, tôt and tard: early and late.)

Negative adverbs

Did you know that when we use the construction ne…pas to put sentences in the negative in French, these words are also acting as adverbs? In the same way, so are all the negative phrases that employ the word ne to modify a verb.

• Le pétrole n’est plus une ressource facile à trouver pour le gouvernement français. – Oil is no longer an easy resource to find for the French government.

• Mon vieux mobile ne fonctionne guère. – My old mobile phone hardly functions.

Conclusion

Adverbs are an essential part of daily conversation in French. They modify verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They usually follow the verb, or they go before the adjective or the other adverb they modify. Like with the English adverbs that end in -ly, many French adverbs are formed from French adjectives simply by adding the ending –ment.

Beyond these general basics about adverbs in French, we spent the majority of this post introducing various categories of adverbs based on their use. Whether we’re talking about adverbs of frequency, quantity, manner, time, or place, these are some of the most frequently-used words in the French language.

We provided lists of the most common French adverbs in each of these categories to get you started, while stressing the important point that as long as these words are used to modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, they’re acting as adverbs themselves.

With this detailed introduction to adverbs in French, including all our examples and the lists of adverbs in each category, we hope this post has helped you gain confidence in using all these French adverbs in your written and spoken French!