By Courtney King Last updated: January 17, 2024

Spanish Adverbs: An Introductory Guide Plus 50 Common Adverbs

Spanish adverbs aren’t too difficult to understand, especially if you already know a bit about Spanish adjectives.

Adverbs are words that describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. For example, in the sentence “She walked very slowly past the house,” both “very” and “slowly” are adverbs.

Learning about adverbs will let you understand more details and descriptions in Spanish sentences, and also help you communicate with more nuance in your own Spanish speech and writing.

Contents

• What Are Adverbs?
• How to Create Adverbs in Spanish
• 100 of the Most Common Adverbs in Spanish
• • Adverbs of place
  • Adverbs of frequency
  • Adverbs of manner
  • Adverbs of degree
  • Adverbs of time
  • Adverbs of affirmation
  • Adverbs of negation
  • Adverbs of doubt
  • Adverbs of question and exclamation
  • Relative adverbs
• How to Use Spanish Adverbs in Sentences
• How Native Speakers Use Spanish Adverbs 
• How to Practice Spanish Adverbs
• And One More Thing…

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

What Are Adverbs?

Adverbs are the words that are used to modify other words in a sentence, usually verbs (action words), adjectives (descriptive words) and sometimes other adverbs.

In Spanish, just like in English, there are dozens of adverbs that come in a variety of categories. An adverb can be used to define the frequency, speed, style, intensity or perspective of something. Adverbs also let you describe where something is or the direction it’s moving in.

Many of these adverbs are formed in a similar pattern to words you probably already know, which will make them fairly easy to recognize.

How to Create Adverbs in Spanish

In English, adverbs are often created by adding “-ly” to an adjective. In Spanish, adverbs are created by adding “-mente“ to the feminine form of the adjective. 

Here are a few examples:

• accidentalmente (accidentally)
• hermosamente  (beautifully)
• constantemente  (constantly)

Remember that not all adjectives have an exclusively feminine form, so sometimes they will just remain as they are. For example, claro (clear) will change to clara but alegre (happy) will not have to change:

• claramente (clearly)
• alegremente (happily)

As in English, this can’t be done with every adjective in Spanish, but it will work with a substantial portion of them. While some adverbs are not in this format, these are usually such common words that you’ll pick them up quickly.

100 of the Most Common Adverbs in Spanish

There are quite a few reasons you’ll need adverbs in a sentence, so there are many different categories that they fall under.

Here are some adverbs that will help you describe the place, frequency, manner, degree and time of an occurrence.

While you can find more outside of these categories, this list includes many of the most frequently used adverbs that you may encounter in almost every sentence in Spanish!

Adverbs of place

Here’s an example of aquí (here) in the song “Te fuiste de aquí” (You Left Here) by Reik: 

Adverbs of frequency

To learn more Spanish adverbs of frequency, check out this post:

Adverbs of manner

Here’s an example of bien (well) as an adverb modifying a verb in Shakira’s song “No”:

Adverbs of degree

Here’s an example of mas o menos (more or less) in a video on how to make pita bread:

Adverbs of time

Here’s an example of hoy (today) at the end of a cooking video:

Adverbs of affirmation

Here’s an example of también (also) in an interview with the actress Ana de Armas:

Adverbs of negation

Here’s another example of tampoco (neither) from the song “Movimiento” (Movement) by Jorge Drexler:

Adverbs of doubt

Here’s another example of tal vez (maybe) from a scene from the show “Friends”:

Adverbs of question and exclamation

Here’s another example of cómo (how) from “The Little Mermaid”:

Relative adverbs

If that feels like a lot, it can help to split up words by themes (like we did) and try to find the English words hiding inside them (like the word “annual” in anualmente). 

Another great way to learn adverbs is through authentic videos, and you can find plenty of these on FluentU.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

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How to Use Spanish Adverbs in Sentences

Adverbs are used for modifying other words in the sentence, so naturally they almost always are located next to the word in the sentence that they’re modifying.

Here are the three situations in which adverbs are used in Spanish:

First is perhaps the most common way adverbs are used, which is to modify verbs. These adverbs describe how an action is being done, and are usually located directly before or after the verb itself.

Ella esperó pacientemente. (She waited patiently.)

Rápidamente corrió hacia la salida. (Quickly, he ran towards the exit.)

Adverbs are also used to modify adjectives, which modify nouns. They most often tell us about the frequency or degree of the adjective and are usually located directly before the adjective they’re modifying.

El servicio es usualmente bueno. (The service is usually good.)

El norte es increíblemente frío. (The North is incredibly cold.)

Finally, adverbs can also modify other adverbs. In this case, they usually go directly before the adverb they’re modifying.

La mujer sonrió muy alegremente. (The woman smiled very happily.)

El lugar está bastante lejos. (The place is quite far.)

If you want to use two adverbs to describe a verb, only the second one will use the standard form for adverbs (with the “-mente” suffix). The first adverb in the sentence will remain an adjective in its feminine form:

Ella habla lenta y suavemente. (She speaks slowly and gently.)

Adverbs that show point of view usually go at the beginning of a sentence. This is the same as the way we do it in English:

Personalmente, no lo disfruto. (Personally, I don’t enjoy it.)

How Native Speakers Use Spanish Adverbs 

We’ve covered the grammatically correct way to use Spanish adverbs, but it’s important to note that native speakers don’t always speak with perfect grammar. 

Just like an English speaker might say something like “He talks super loud” instead of “loudly,” Spanish speakers often leave off the -mente ending as well. 

For example, you might hear something like “Hice el trabajo rapido”  (I did the work quickly) instead of the correct form of the adverb, rápidamente.

While such deviations may occur in casual conversation, formal or written Spanish typically adheres to proper adverb placement and form.

How to Practice Spanish Adverbs

There are tons of resources available for you to further your knowledge and comprehension of Spanish adverbs. And the best part is most of them are free and available online!

Here are a few suggestions to get started:

• Read short stories or passages in Spanish: This post has short stories in Spanish for beginners through advanced learners. There is also a free online international library of lower-level books of all types in both Spanish and English.
• Quiz yourself: Study Spanish has some adverb quizzes available, not only for reading and writing but also for listening and speaking.
• Watch lectures online: The YouTube channel Butterfly Spanish gives you the classroom vibe and teaches a wide variety of topics in Spanish, including adverbs. It even accepts suggestions from its viewers for what to teach next! Check out their video lesson on prepositions and adverbs: 

With some practice, you’ll be able to use adverbs in Spanish with confidence and ease. 

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

And One More Thing…

If you've made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish with engaging material and will then love FluentU.

Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.

FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.

Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.

The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)