Compare Ce projet est important (This project is important) with Ce projet est extrêmement important, et évidemment, il faut agir rapidement (This project is extremely important, and obviously we have to act quickly). The facts are the same; the second sentence persuades. Adverbs are how French speakers add intensity, certainty, doubt and manner to a statement, and they are everywhere in ads, speeches, reviews and opinion pieces. Most French adverbs end in -ment, the equivalent of English -ly, and they are built from an adjective by a short set of rules. Once you know the rules you can produce hundreds of adverbs from adjectives you already know. Then there is the question of where to put them, which is different from English: French says J'ai bien dormi (literally I have well slept), not J'ai dormi bien.
Building an adverb from an adjective
| Rule | Adjective | Adverb | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main rule: feminine form + -ment | lent → lente | lentement | slowly |
| heureux → heureuse | heureusement | fortunately, happily | |
| doux → douce | doucement | gently, softly | |
| actif → active | activement | actively | |
| franc → franche | franchement | frankly | |
| Masculine ends in a vowel (-é, -i, -u, -ai): masculine + -ment | vrai | vraiment | really, truly |
| poli | poliment | politely | |
| absolu | absolument | absolutely | |
| aisé | aisément | easily | |
| -ant → -amment | constant | constamment | constantly |
| courant | couramment | fluently | |
| suffisant | suffisamment | sufficiently, enough | |
| -ent → -emment | évident | évidemment | obviously |
| récent | récemment | recently | |
| patient | patiemment | patiently | |
| fréquent | fréquemment | frequently |
Amment and emment sound the same
Constamment and évidemment end in exactly the same sound, [amɑ̃], like a-man. The spelling follows the adjective: if the adjective ends in -ant, write -amment; if it ends in -ent, write -emment. So when you hear [amɑ̃] and need to spell it, think back to the adjective: prudent → prudemment, bruyant → bruyamment. The main exceptions are lent → lentement (slowly) and présent → présentement, which follow the main rule instead. Présentement (currently, right now) is very common in Canadian French, where many speakers in France would say actuellement or en ce moment.
| Special group | Adjective | Adverb | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Irregular | bon | bien | well |
| mauvais | mal | badly | |
| meilleur | mieux | better | |
| gentil | gentiment | kindly, nicely | |
| bref (brève) | brièvement | briefly | |
| Add -ément instead of -ement | précis | précisément | precisely, exactly |
| énorme | énormément | enormously, a huge amount | |
| profond | profondément | deeply | |
| intense | intensément | intensely | |
| aveugle | aveuglément | blindly | |
| Vowel ending, but built on the feminine | gai | gaiement | cheerfully |
| nouveau (nouvelle) | nouvellement | newly | |
| fou (folle) | follement | madly, wildly |
Where the adverb goes
| Situation | Usual position | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple tense (présent, imparfait, futur…) | right after the conjugated verb | Elle parle couramment le français. | She speaks French fluently. |
| Compound tense, short common adverb (bien, mal, déjà, souvent, toujours, beaucoup, trop, assez, encore, vraiment) | between the auxiliary and the past participle | J'ai bien dormi. Tu as déjà mangé ? | I slept well. Have you already eaten? |
| Compound tense, adverb of manner in -ment | usually after the past participle | Il a répondu poliment. | He answered politely. |
| Compound tense, adverb of certainty or opinion (probablement, sûrement, certainement) | usually between auxiliary and participle | Elle a probablement oublié. | She probably forgot. |
| Adverbs of time and place (hier, aujourd'hui, demain, ici, partout) | after the participle, or at the start or end of the sentence | Je l'ai vu hier. Hier, je l'ai vu. | I saw him yesterday. |
| With an infinitive | short adverbs often go before the infinitive | Il faut bien comprendre la question. | You have to understand the question properly. |
Adverbs that persuade, affirm or doubt
| Function | Adverbs and phrases | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intensify (persuade) | énormément, extrêmement, absolument, tellement, particulièrement, vraiment | Ce programme aide énormément les jeunes. | This program helps young people enormously. |
| Present as obvious | évidemment, bien sûr, de toute évidence, incontestablement | Évidemment, il faut protéger la forêt boréale. | Obviously, we have to protect the boreal forest. |
| Affirm strongly | certainement, sûrement, assurément, sans aucun doute | C'est sans aucun doute la meilleure option. | It is without a doubt the best option. |
| Show probability or doubt | probablement, peut-être, vraisemblablement, sans doute | Le projet sera vraisemblablement retardé. | The project will in all likelihood be delayed. |
| Be exact | précisément, exactement, justement | C'est précisément le problème. | That's precisely the problem. |
Peut-être at the start of a sentence
In the middle or at the end, peut-être behaves like any adverb: Il viendra peut-être (He'll come, maybe). If you put it first, standard French requires either inversion or que: Peut-être viendra-t-il (formal writing) or Peut-être qu'il viendra (everyday speech and writing). Peut-être il viendra is heard in casual speech but counts as an error in writing. The same goes for sans doute at the start: Sans doute qu'il a raison (He's probably right). Note also the spelling: the adverb peut-être (maybe) has a hyphen; peut être without one is the verb pouvoir + être: Ça peut être dangereux (That can be dangerous).
- D'après moi / À mon avis, le transport en commun devrait être gratuit. — In my view / In my opinion, public transit should be free.
- Quant à moi, je préfère le vélo. — As for me, I prefer cycling.
- J'estime que la ville investit trop peu dans les pistes cyclables. — I consider that the city invests too little in bike lanes.
- Il me semble que les jeunes utilisent davantage l'autobus. — It seems to me that young people use the bus more.
Il me semble que and il semble que
Il me semble que (it seems to me that) is close to je pense que and, in an affirmative sentence, is followed by the indicatif: Il me semble que tu as raison. Without me, il semble que (it seems that) expresses more distance and is usually followed by the subjonctif: Il semble que le projet soit retardé (It seems that the project is delayed). The tiny pronoun changes the mood.
| Comparing with precision | Meaning | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| comme | like, as | Elle parle comme sa mère. | She talks like her mother. |
| ainsi que | as (formal), just as | Ainsi que je l'ai expliqué, le projet coûte trop cher. | As I explained, the project costs too much. |
| de même que | just like, as well as | Le français, de même que l'anglais, est une langue officielle du Canada. | French, just like English, is an official language of Canada. |
| différemment de | differently from | Les jeunes s'informent différemment de leurs parents. | Young people get their news differently from their parents. |
| contrairement à | unlike, contrary to | Contrairement à mon frère, j'adore lire. | Unlike my brother, I love reading. |
| semblable à / pareil à | similar to / the same as | Ce problème est semblable à celui de l'an dernier. | This problem is similar to last year's. |
| tel que (agrees: telle, tels, telles) | such as, like | des villes telles que Moncton et Sudbury | cities such as Moncton and Sudbury |