Imagine two American students are talking outside of their school. Let’s listen to the imaginary
conversation:
A: Today is going
B: Yeah. I guess we should study for our grammar test.
A: That sounds like a terrible idea.
B: Yeah, but if we don't study, we won't
A: Fine. Let's go study our notes
These bad students may hate grammar, but they just taught you some common grammatical structures in conversational American English.
In today's report, we will study how conversational grammar differs from written and
We will show you how some Americans use adjectives and adverbs in
Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives are words that give information about nouns. They generally appear before nouns, although they also appear after linking verbs.
Here are two examples:
You are a good student.
Learning English is fun.
In the two example sentences, the words "good" and "fun" are adjectives. They are telling you something about a noun.
Adverbs are often used to
For example, the adverb loudly appears in this sentence:
We sang loudly.
The adverb loudly modifies the past tense verb, sang. It tells about the way in which the subject, we, sang. Adverbs often have an –ly ending, but there are many that do not. You can read more about adverbs in past Everyday Grammar stories.
Conversation:
Let's think back to the conversation we heard at the beginning of the story:
A: Today is going
B: Yeah. I guess we should study for our grammar test.
A: That sounds like a terrible idea.
B: Yeah, but if we don't study, we won't
A: Fine. Let's go study our notes
Notice that the words are used differently from what might be taught in an English class.
In casual conversation, Americans often use adjective forms in place of adverbs. They may use adjective forms to modify verbs.
For example, the students use good – a word that is normally an adjective - as an adverb. One student says "we won't
In writing and in formal conversation, Americans generally do not use the word "good" this way. Instead, they use the word well. In formal writing or speaking, you would be more likely to see or hear the sentence "we won't do well on the test."
Americans also may use an adverb but choose not to say an –ly ending.
For example, the student says "today is going slow," instead of "today is going slowly." You would be more likely to read "slowly" in
Not necessarily slang, not necessarily impolite
These grammatical structures are not necessarily
For example, a boss might tell an employee "We need to do this quick," about a project that must be completed quickly.
This is the same
Conrad and Biber say that in formal speech and writing, adjective forms are almost never used to modify verbs. In addition, adverbs with –ly endings are more common in writing – particularly in academic and news writing.*
What can you do?
The good news is this: we are not asking you to
What we hope to do is show you that the grammatical patterns in conversation do not always match the patterns used in formal writing or speech. There is more
Understanding this idea will help you understand Americans when they speak, and it will help you sound more natural when you speak to Americans.
You might also be pleased to know that Americans will not judge you severely if you use an adjective in place of an adverb. In fact, they probably would do the same!
I'm Jill Robbins.
And I'm John Russell.
John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
** If you
would like to read more about adverbs, you might want to try these two
resources:
- New Words
-
conversation – n. an informal talk involving two people or a small group of people
formal – adj. suitable for serious or official speech and writing
casual – adj. not formal
modify – v. grammar: to limit or describe the meaning of (a word or group of words)
manner – n. the way that something is done or happens
academic – adj. of or relating to schools and education
slang – n. words that are not considered part of the standard vocabulary of a language and that are used very informally in speech especially by a particular group of people
impolite – adj. not polite
pattern – n. the regular and repeated way in which something happens or is done
memorize – v. to learn (something) so well that you are able to remember it perfectly
flexibility – n. able to change or to do different things
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