In short

An adverb tells you how, when, where, how much or how certain: Ela conduz bem (“She drives well”), Chegámos ontem (“We arrived yesterday”), Está aqui (“It’s here”), É muito caro (“It’s very expensive”). The single fact to hold on to is that adverbs are invariable - they never agree with anything. This is the mirror image of the adjectives in Lesson 5: an adjective copies the noun’s gender and number (uma casa bonita), but the adverb attached to a verb or adjective is frozen (ela canta bem, eles cantam bem). English blurs the line because “fast”, “hard” and “early” work as both parts of speech; Portuguese keeps them apart, and the commonest A2 slip is using an adjective (which agrees) where an adverb (which cannot) belongs. Portuguese also leans heavily on locuções adverbiais - fixed multi-word phrases like às vezes and de repente - which in everyday speech are often more frequent than the single-word forms.

The rule

Adverbs of manner in -mente

The productive way to make a “how” adverb is the suffix -mente, the equivalent of English “-ly”. The recipe is exact:

1. Take the adjective’s feminine singular form.
2. Add -mente.

So rápido -> feminine rápida -> rapidamente; lento -> lenta -> lentamente; claro -> clara -> claramente. Adjectives with a single form for both genders just add the suffix directly: feliz -> felizmente, fácil -> facilmente, normal -> normalmente, frequente -> frequentemente.

Two things English speakers must not miss. First, the base adjective drops its own written accent when it takes -mente, because the stress moves onto the suffix: rápido -> rapidamente (no á), fácil -> facilmente, só -> somente, único -> unicamente, cortês -> cortesmente. Second, when you string two or more -mente adverbs together, only the last one keeps the suffix; the earlier ones stay as bare feminine adjectives: Falou clara e pausadamente (“He spoke clearly and slowly”), lenta mas seguramente (“slowly but surely”).

Not every adjective builds a -mente adverb. The two most important - bom and mau - do not: their adverbs are the irregular bem (“well”) and mal (“badly”), which is the next point.

bem / mal are adverbs; bom / mau are adjectives

This pair is the “good vs well” trap, and Portuguese is strict about it. Use the adjective (bom/boa, mau/má, agreeing) to describe a noun, and the adverb (bem, mal, invariable) to describe a verb:

• É um bom livro (a good book) but Ela escreve bem (she writes well).
• Foi uma má ideia (a bad idea) but Ele portou-se mal (he behaved badly).

Never say Ela escreve boa or Ele fala bom português - the verb takes bem: Ele fala bem português. As you saw in Lesson 5, bom/mau also have one-word comparatives (melhor, pior), and those same forms are the comparatives of bem/mal too (Lesson 18).

The classes of adverb

Adverbs sort into a handful of meaning groups. You already met most of these words in earlier lessons; here they are gathered by function:

• Manner (modo): bem, mal, assim (“like this”), depressa (“fast”), devagar (“slowly”), and all the -mente adverbs.
• Time (tempo): hoje, ontem, amanhã, agora, já (“already / now”), ainda (“still / yet”), sempre, nunca, cedo (“early”), tarde (“late”), logo (“soon / later”).
• Place (lugar): aqui / cá (“here”), aí (“there, by you”), ali / lá (“there”), perto, longe, dentro, fora, atrás, à frente, em cima, em baixo.
• Quantity / degree (quantidade): muito, pouco, bastante (“quite / enough”), demasiado (“too”), quase (“almost”), tão (“so”), mais, menos, and the colloquial EP intensifier imenso (“a lot”).
• Affirmation / negation / doubt: sim, também (“also”); não, nunca, também não (“not either”); talvez (“perhaps”), provavelmente, se calhar (“maybe”, very common in Portugal).

Degree adverbs, and the muito recap

Degree adverbs sit in front of the word they scale and stay invariable: muito caro, bastante longe, demasiado tarde, quase pronto. This is the muito distinction from Lesson 16: scaling an adjective or verb, muito freezes (elas são muito simpáticas, trabalham muito); it agrees only in front of a noun (muitas casas). The EP flavour word imenso works the same way - as an adverb it means “a lot” and never agrees: Gostei imenso do filme.

Adverbial phrases (locuções adverbiais)

A locução adverbial is a fixed group of words that works as one adverb. Portuguese uses these constantly, and many everyday meanings have no single-word adverb at all - you must learn the phrase. They very often replace a -mente form: com frequência = frequentemente, de certeza = certamente. A high-value starter set:

às vezes (sometimes), de vez em quando (from time to time), de repente (suddenly), por acaso (by chance), de propósito (on purpose), ao mesmo tempo (at the same time), de novo (again), em breve (soon), à vontade (freely, at ease), pouco a pouco (little by little), com certeza / de certeza (certainly), se calhar (maybe). Note that the EP se calhar takes an ordinary indicative verb - Se calhar vou (“Maybe I’ll go”) - which makes it the easy, everyday alternative to talvez.

Where the adverb goes

Word order is freer than in English, but the defaults are:

• Manner adverbs come after the verb (and after its object): Ela fala português fluentemente, Ele conduz bem.
• Degree adverbs come immediately before the word they scale: muito rápido, quase sempre, demasiado cedo.
• Sentence adverbs (a comment on the whole clause) go at the front, set off by a comma: Felizmente, ninguém se magoou (“Fortunately, nobody got hurt”), Provavelmente, está fechado.
• Time and place adverbs are flexible - front or end: Hoje não trabalho or Não trabalho hoje. The negation adverb não is the fixed exception: it always sits directly before the verb (Lesson 15) - Não sei, Ainda não chegaram.

Forms & patterns

Building -mente adverbs (from the feminine, dropping any written accent):

The adverb classes, with core members:

High-frequency adverbial phrases:

Examples

Common mistakes

• Ele fala bom português. -> Ele fala bem português. - a verb takes the adverb bem, not the adjective bom; bom/mau describe nouns, bem/mal describe actions.
• Ela escreve boa. -> Ela escreve bem. - the adverb is invariable and cannot agree; there is no feminine “boa” of an action.
• rápidamente, fácilmente with the accent kept -> rapidamente, facilmente - the base adjective loses its written accent when -mente is added.
• claramente e pausadamente -> clara e pausadamente - with two coordinated adverbs, only the last keeps -mente.
• Elas trabalham muitas. -> Elas trabalham muito. - modifying a verb, muito is a frozen adverb; it agrees only in front of a noun (muitas horas).
• de repentemente -> de repente (or repentinamente) - it is a fixed phrase; do not glue -mente onto it.
• Talvez sim. is fine, but Talvez vou with an ordinary verb is shaky - EP prefers either Se calhar vou (indicative) or talvez with the mood you meet in Lesson 34; at this stage, reach for se calhar.
• Não também gosto. -> Também não gosto. (“I don’t like it either”) - the negative pair is também não, in that order.

Tips

• Build every -mente adverb from the feminine adjective and then erase the base’s accent: rápida -> rapidamente, fácil -> facilmente. Do it in two steps and you will never misspell one.
• Tattoo the pair bem / mal for verbs and bom / mau for nouns. “How does she sing?” -> Canta bem, never canta boa.
• Memorize a dozen locuções adverbiais early (às vezes, de vez em quando, de repente, ao mesmo tempo, se calhar) - in real EP speech they come up more than the tidy -mente forms.
• Default placement: manner after the verb, degree before the word, sentence comment at the front with a comma. When in doubt, put a time or place adverb at either end - both are fine.
• For “maybe” in everyday European Portuguese, use se calhar with a normal verb and sidestep the subjunctive until Lesson 34.
• Adverbs compare just like adjectives (Lesson 18): mais depressa (do) que, tão bem como, and the irregular melhor / pior double as the comparatives of bem / mal - Ela cozinha melhor do que eu.