2. You never take anything seriously
Adverbs of frequency
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| By feureau. Creative Commons |
Do you remember? Paco never gets angry. He has won the lottery and he is helping people. He often goes to hospitals to make children smile with presents and he takes it seriously. But how often does Paco go to hospitals?
Adverbs of frequency are usually used with the Present Simple tense to say how often a person does something (e.g. Paco always smiles, or he sometimes visits children in hospitals). The most frequently-used adverbs of frequency are:
siempre - normalmente - a menudo - algunas veces - nunca
Notice where they are placed in the sentence.
| BEFORE the MAIN VERB |
AFTER the verb TO BE |
| You never take anything seriously | You're always going off |
Example exercise
Read the following sentences carefully.
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| By lance robotson. C. Commons |
- Paco always does the lottery.
- Paco and his father always practise catch and release fishing.
- They usually play it at weekends.
- We usually have a good time.
- My father can sometimes jump over that fence.
- We frequently meet at 5 p.m.
- We often go to the burger bar.
- We never drink alcohol.
- On Sundays, we are always very tired and we usually stay at home.
- Juan sometimes tells jokes there.
However, there are more adverbs to express how often we do something. Some of them are also placed in the sentence before the main verb and after the verb to be.
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| By eyeliam Creative Commons. |
| always | Juan always makes his friends laugh. | |
| almost always | My parents are almost always at home. | |
| usually | generally, normally, regularly | They usually/generally/normally/regularly go to the cinema on Sundays. |
| often | frequently | Paco often/frequently plays tennis with Andrés. |
| sometimes | occasionally | He sometimes/occasionally studies English. |
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hardly ever, seldom, rarely, almost never, |
Juan is hardly ever/seldom/rarely/almost never upset. |
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| never | Paco never gets angry. |
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Paco always is happy now.
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Paco is always happy now.
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His sister sometimes can help their mother in the kitchen.
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Her sister can sometimes help their mother in the kitchen.
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Paco and his friends usually watch football matches together.
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Paco and his friends watch usually football matches together.
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Further knowledge
If you want to keep on practising with adverbs of frenquency and the Simple Present tense, there are lots of web sites to do it.
- Click here if you want to improve the common position of these adverbs in a sentence.
- Or click here if you want to improve the grade of frequency they express.
Curiosity
People always talk about the weather.
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| By Brad Wood. C. Commons |
The 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson remarked: "It is commonly observed that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather".
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| By Teo. C. Commons |
In his book How to Be an Alien, George Mikes says that in England the weather is always an interesting, exciting subject and you must be good at discussing it! On the contrary, in the rest of Europe we use this topic when we do not have any other topic to talk about. Have you never talked about the weather on a lift?