Hi, and welcome to Confusing Adjectives and Adverbs.
In this lesson, we will discuss adjectives and adverbs that are similar in form, and adverbs with unusual forms.
There are also some adjectives and adverbs that are similar in form but are very different in use.
Late and lately are commonly confused but are very different in meaning.
Late is an adjective and means arriving after a specific time.
But lately is a synonym for recently, meaning near in time.
So in a sentence, the meeting was supposed to start at 9, but
it started at 9:15 because John was late.
Means 9 was the start time, but the meeting started after that time.
But with lately, as in Jane must be busy.
I haven't seen her lately.
I mean to say that in recent days, weeks, or months, I haven't seen her.
With hard and hardly, there are actually forms of hard.
One is an adjective and one is an adverb.
The adjective hard means difficult, or it could mean solid.
The adverb hard means productive, or with force.
Hardly is a negative adverb meaning almost not.
For example, learning English is hard uses hard as an adjective meaning difficult.
But in the example, glass is liquid when hot, but when it cools becomes hard, means a solid or non-liquid state.
With hard as an adverb meaning productive, we can say Walter worked hard in the garden.
With the meaning of with force, we could say the door sticks closed.
Sometimes you have to push hard.
In the sentence using hardly, I've hardly seen my roommate all week.
She's been working on a big project for class.
Means I have seen her almost not at all.
Dead and deadly are both adjectives, but dead means no longer living and is the opposite of alive.
But deadly means might cause death.
In the sentence, a dead body was found in the car, describes the body as not living.
But in the sentence, Cobras have deadly venom in their fangs, describes venom, and the venom could cause death.
We often describe things that can cause death in expressions such
as deadly weapon, deadly poison, deadly crash, and deadly accident.
Similarly alive and live are both adjectives.
But alive means still living or energetic, the opposite of dead.
And live means not artificial, or currently active.
In the sentence, both my grandparents are still alive and well in Florida, means that my grandparents aren't dead.
But we wanted to say both my grandparents are still live and well in Florida.
In the sentence, this product was not tested on live animals,
means the animals are actively living.
We wouldn't use the sentence, this product was not tested on alive animals.
Now free is an adjective meaning not costing money, and freely is an adverb, but it means without limit.
So sometimes you might hear in advertising, when you buy two, you get the third one free.
Meaning you do not have to pay for the third item.
But in the sentence, in the United States,
you can travel freely from one state to another using the interstate freeway system means you can move easily across state borders.
Lastly, adverbs often end with LY.
Here are some examples.
However, there are several frequently used adverbs that don't follow this pattern.
For instance, several adverbs of frequency, such as always, often, et cetera, do not follow the usual -ly pattern.
Also, words like no, not, never, nowhere, are negative adverbs without the -ly ending
A lot of the transitions used in writing are adverbs, such as furthermore, also, next etc.
Other adverbs don't follow any kind of pattern, like very, well, far, and others.
So those are only some of the adjectives and adverbs that you might find confusing.
We discussed adjectives and adverbs that are similar in meaning, adjectives and adverbs that are similar in form, and adverbs with unusual forms.
Thanks for listening!
