Adverbs and verbs

Adverbs often modify verbs. This means that they describe the way an action is happening.

Huan sings loudly in the shower.

My cat waits impatiently for his food.

I will seriously consider your suggestion.

The adverb in each of the sentences above answers the question In what manner? How does Huan sing? Loudly. How does my cat wait? Impatiently. How will I consider your suggestion? Seriously. Adverbs can answer other types of questions about how an action was performed. They can also tell you when (“we arrived early”), where (“turn here”), or with what frequency (“I go there often”).

However, there is one type of verb that doesn’t mix well with adverbs. Linking verbs, such as feel, smell, sound, seem, and appear, typically precede adjectives, not adverbs. A very common example of the type of mixup that happens with linking verbs is the following:

Paz feels badly about what happened.

Because feel is a verb, it seems to call for an adverb rather than an adjective. But feel isn’t just any verb; it’s a linking verb, which means that it links the subject of a sentence to the modifier that follows it. Since a subject is, by definition, a noun (or a pronoun), it is modified by an adjective. An adverb would describe how you perform the action of feeling—an adjective describes what you feel. “Paz feels badly” means that Paz is bad at feeling things. If Paz is trying to read Braille through thick leather gloves, then it might make sense for you to say “Paz feels badly.” But if you’re trying to say that Paz is experiencing negative emotions, “Paz feels bad” is the phrase you want.