Building up a word pool/adverbs and adjectives

Some sentences may be correct and yet something is still missing:

I was walking throught the forest. I saw a fox.

They sound boring and lifeless.

Give more background information with attributes:

I was walking slowlythrough the dark and peaceful forest.

Then I suddenly saw a small red fox.

Here's another example:

There was a house.

There was an old house.

There was a really old house with a sagging roof and some broken windows in the attic.

Adjectives describe nouns and adverbs describe verbs or other adjectives /adverbs:

I was walking quite carefully and slowlythrough the really dark and peaceful forest.

see more:

• Adverb or Adjective?

Adverbs of degree

Adverbs of degree are used to modify verbs, adverbs and adjectives. They tell us the intensity to which something happens.

I'm cold!

How cold?

I'm a little cold. (★) - I'm pretty cold. (★★) - I'm really cold (★★★). - I'm absolutely frozen. (★★★★)

★

• a bit
• a little
• barely
• hardly
• narrowly
• scarcely

…

★★

• fairly
• pretty
• quite
• rather
• somewhat

…

★★★

• deeply
• decidedly
• extremely
• incredibly
• really
• very

★★★★

• absolutely
• completely
• entirely
• totally

Tip

Don't overdo it! Don't give every adjective its own adverb of degree but sprinkle it into your guided writing!

The Test

Put in the correct adverbs:

We had an English test. I was almost finished when I saw a bird outside the window.

Its colorful feathers looked absolutely wonderful.

The bird was sitting on the window sill and I was barely moving.

I felt incredibly lucky to see such a beautiful creature but my teacher was terribly grumpy today.

Use adverbs of degree:

Did you do well in the last test?

Well, it was OK . We were fairly|pretty|quite|rather|somewhat (**) late but that seems absolutely|completely|incredibly|really|totally(***) normal, doesn't it? So we had to hurry to class.

Did you do well in the last test?

Well, it was OK . We were fairly/pretty/quite/rather/somewhat (**) late but that seems absolutely/completely/incredibly/really/totally(***) normal, doesn't it? So we had to hurry to class.

Inversion

Sometimes you want to strenghten your point of view by putting the adverb first:

Little did I know ...

Never have I seen such wildlife.

Rarely do foxes show themselves.

Not only did she do ...

Tip

These sentence structures are only used in writing, never in conversation!

Interactive Exercises

The Test

We had an English test. I was almost finished when I saw a bird outside the window.

Its colorful feathers looked absolutely wonderful.

The bird was sitting on the window sill and I was barely moving.

I felt incredibly lucky to see such a beautiful creature but my teacher was terribly grumpy today.

Building up a word pool

Synonyms

Building up a word pool

1. adverbs and adjectives
   • Adverbs of degree
   • Inversions
2. Synonyms
   • go & walk
   • see
   • good
3. Mindmapping