How to Choose Between Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs are both describing words, which is exactly why they get mixed up. The difference is what they describe. Get that straight and questions like good or well? answer themselves.

The one-question test

Find the word being described, then ask what kind of word it is.

• If it is a noun or pronoun, you need an adjective. In the careful driver, careful describes driver.
• If it is a verb, adjective or adverb, you need an adverb. In she drives carefully, carefully describes drives.

Good vs well

Good is an adjective. Well is usually an adverb. So you do a good job, and you do the job well.

The wrinkle: well is also an adjective meaning healthy. "I'm well" means you are not ill. "I'm good" is fine in everyday speech to mean you're doing fine, and it is not a grammatical error, because good is an adjective after the linking verb am. In formal writing, well sounds more polished when you mean health.

The linking-verb trap

Linking verbs don't describe an action; they connect the subject to a description of it. The description that follows is an adjective, because it describes the subject (a noun or pronoun), not the verb.

• The soup smells delicious. (The soup is delicious.)
• He looked angry. (He was angry.)
• I feel bad about the mistake. (I am in a bad state.)

Saying I feel badly technically means your sense of touch isn't working properly. Many people use it to sound polite, but I feel bad is the standard form.

Some verbs can be linking or action verbs depending on meaning. She looked angry (appearance, linking) versus she looked angrily at the screen (an action done in an angry way).

Words that end in -ly but aren't adverbs

The -ly ending is a strong hint, not a rule. These are adjectives:

friendly, lovely, lonely, likely, ugly, costly, elderly, timely, silly

Because there is no natural adverb form (friendlily is not something people say), use a phrase instead: She greeted us in a friendly way.

Adverbs without -ly

Some common adverbs have no -ly at all: fast, hard, late, soon, often, never, well, very, quite. A few words have two adverb forms with different meanings:

• He works hard (with effort) / He hardly works (barely at all).
• She arrived late (not on time) / She has been tired lately (recently).

Comparatives and superlatives

Short adjectives add -er and -est: fast, faster, fastest. Longer adjectives use more and most: more careful, most careful. Most adverbs ending in -ly use more and most: more quickly, not quicklier.

Irregular forms are worth memorising: good, better, best; bad, worse, worst; well, better, best; far, farther/further, farthest/furthest.

Practice quiz