Adverbs of Degree

This lesson is all about adverbs of degree so adverbs of degree answer the question To what extent.

So they tell us about the intensity or extent of something and adverbs of degree also tell us about the completeness of something and they usually place before the item that is modified and we’ll see plenty of examples showing this please do not confuse adverbs of degree with adverbs of manner.

And lastly very as a commonly used adverb a degree that can usually be replaced with a better word.

This is maybe a topic for more advanced students.

Now there are many many adverbs of degree and they can be sort of ordered for this rather large table gives you a list of eleven adverbs of degree ranging from absolutely the highest intensity to scarcely at the lowest intensity and there’s a list in order going from highest down to lowest.

How with some examples as well so maybe you might want to pause the video and just check the examples for yourself.

but here’s the thing.

It’s very difficult to objectively attach meaning to these adverbs a degree is a very very subjective area and one person might say but hardly is less than barely.

I put here barely being less than hardly the order is kind of accepted by most people so quite is less intense and largely and largely to mostly two extremely and so on.

But it is very difficult to attach sort of a number to this.

And what we see here is that all these adverbs of degree are very subjective in the way that they’re used.

So it’s worth bearing in mind when we look at our examples so adverbs of degree.

Tell us about the intensity of something in winter.

It is extremely cold here not just cold it’s like really extremely cold.

It’s very cold or the boss strongly criticized the project manager.

So the poor project manager wasn’t just criticized by the boss.

He was strongly criticized which kind of makes it worse for him or her.

Or Jane thinks her new boyfriend is absolutely wonderful so she thinks the world of him.

Now these three examples show how something can be made more intense.

We can also use adverbs of degree to reduce the intensity.

So Peter paid little attention during the meeting the food in the canteen is quite nice.

He’s kind of okay.

It’s not amazing.

It’s quite nice it sort of reduces the positive statement of it.

And I’m not entirely convinced by your argument which means again it’s being used to sort of reduce the expression that is being said.

and adverbs of degree also tell us about the completeness of something and has completely finished her report so all done nothing left to do.

Jim has almost finished his report so not much left Mandy has partly finished her report.

Again we don’t know how far could be 50 percent.

It could be anything really between 30 and 70 again subjective and Bob just started on his report yesterday.

So he’s really like 10 percent that sort of thing.

So there we see four different examples showing degrees of completeness now please don’t confuse adverbs of degree with adverbs of manner and for more information on adverbs of manner.

Please check out the lesson on that topic he speaks Dutch fairly fluently.

The police treated him fairly.

Now both of these are adverbs but they use in different ways.

So as we said earlier adverbs of degree answer the question How much.

So we’re talking about how much or how fluently he speaks Dutch is fairly fluently now as you learn in the adverbs of manner that answers the question how so how did the police treat him they treated him fairly and looser look one more example quickly I’m terribly sorry.

I was terribly sorry I really am very very sorry.

Paul explained the problem terribly so in the first example I’m terribly sorry is showing to the degree to which he is sorry how sorry he is whereas in the second one it’s an adverb of manner where it’s explaining how he explained that the problem was not very well and we go on now to a bit of an advanced topic so beginners will often use the word very to intensify something and you can usually replace that with a better word and we’ll have a look at some examples of that now Peter ran quickly to the other end of the pitch.

Now if we want to say he ran very quickly to the other end of the pitch we can actually replace it with Peter sprinted to the other end of the pitch and this is a better word it describes what he did more succinctly more more briefly.

or after the marathon race.

John was tired obviously it’s a marathon race.

So in order to make it more intense we say John was very tired but there is a better word that we can use for very tired.

We can say after the marathon race John was exhausted.

One more example I’m on a diet and I’m hungry.

So if we want to intensify it we say I want a diet and I’m very hungry which again is perfect.

All these various are perfectly legitimate if we want to improve our English and make better use of the words we could say I’m on a diet and I’m famished.