A2 · The adjectives
Adverbs in -mente
-mente is your -ly, irregulars included.
At a glance
- Remember
- Feminine first, then -mente — and -le loses its e.
- Form
- rapido → rapidamentequickly
- Signal words
- -mente
- rapidamente
- facilmente
- bene
- spesso
- Trap
- Wrong:Ha spiegato tutto facilemente.Right:Ha spiegato tutto facilmente.
Your turn
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The form
From the base form to the new form
Each row first says what the form expresses, then shows it in Italian: the base form before the arrow, the result after it.
| quickly | rapido → rapidamente |
| quickly (from veloce) | veloce → velocemente |
| easily | facile → facilmente |
| normally | normale → normalmente |
| well, badly, often | bene, male, spesso |
| he speaks quietly | parla piano |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
-mente attaches to the feminine form.
Parla molto rapidamente.He speaks very quickly.
-le and -re lose the e.
Ha spiegato tutto facilmente.He explained everything easily.
bene and male are words of their own, like well and badly.
Ho dormito male questa notte.I slept badly last night.
A few adjectives stand unchanged, like your flat adverbs.
Parla piano, i bambini dormono.Speak quietly, the children are asleep.
Example sentences
Ha risposto immediatamente al messaggio.He answered the message immediately.
Probabilmente arriveremo in ritardo.We will probably arrive late.
Normalmente ceniamo verso le otto.We normally have supper around eight.
È andata bene, meglio di quanto pensassi.It went well, better than I expected.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
The e drops only after -le and -re, and only when a vowel comes before them. Facile gives facilmente, but folle gives follemente, because there is a consonant in front of the -le. Two identical letters before the ending means the e stays — and since English drops nothing at all, both halves of this have to be learnt from scratch.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
An adverb is made from the feminine form of the adjective plus -mente: rapido → rapida → rapidamente. If the adjective ends in -e, nothing changes in front of it: veloce → velocemente.
This is the one page in the chapter where English hands everything over. -mente is -ly: it attaches to almost any adjective, it makes a manner adverb, and it is entirely productive in both languages. Even the irregulars line up — buono gives bene as good gives well, and cattivo gives male as bad gives badly.
One exception affects every other adverb, and it is the only piece of real work here. If the adjective ends in -le or -re with a vowel before it, the e drops: facile → facilmente, normale → normalmente, particolare → particolarmente. English never drops anything before -ly, so this has to be added rather than transferred.
A few frequent adverbs are not built this way at all and stand on their own: bene, male, presto, tardi, spesso, sempre, già.
And some adjectives serve unchanged as adverbs next to a verb: parla piano, vai forte, costa caro. English has exactly this too — drive fast, work hard, run deep — and calls them flat adverbs; the group is small and fixed in both languages.
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The verbs on this page, in every form: avere · parlare · dormire · essere · arrivare · rispondere · spiegare · pensare