Advérbios em -mente, irregulares e locuções adverbiais
Adverbs say how, when, how much and how sure. Portuguese builds a huge number of them with the suffix -mente, glued to the FEMININE form of an adjective: rápido → rápida → rapidamente; fácil → facilmente; feliz → felizmente. A short list of very common ones refuses the suffix and has its own shape: bem, mal, depressa, devagar. And a great many ideas come out as LOCUÇÕES ADVERBIAIS — fixed multi-word phrases — instead of single words: de repente, com cuidado, sem dúvida, à vontade, de cor, pouco a pouco. Two habits to pick up early. When you chain -mente adverbs, only the LAST one keeps the suffix: clara e rapidamente. And in Brazil, plenty of adverbs are just bare adjectives: falar rápido, cantar bonito, custar caro.
Forming adverbs with -mente
The recipe: take the FEMININE singular of the adjective and add -mente. rápido → rápida → rapidamente. lento → lenta → lentamente. calmo → calma → calmamente. cuidadoso → cuidadosa → cuidadosamente. sério → séria → seriamente. claro → clara → claramente. If the adjective has one shape for both genders — the ones ending in -e, -l or -z — you just add the suffix to it as it stands: fácil → facilmente, simples → simplesmente, feliz → felizmente, frequente → frequentemente, inteligente → inteligentemente. Now the spelling rule that catches everyone: the adjective LOSES its accent when -mente is attached, because the stress moves to the suffix. rápido has its acute; rapidamente does not. Same with fácil → facilmente, único → unicamente, só → somente. Writing rápidamente is one of the most common mistakes in learner Portuguese. Pronunciation, Brazilian style: -mente comes out 'MEN-chee', because te is 'chee' here — rapidamente is hah-pee-dah-MEN-chee. And these adverbs never change shape: no gender, no plural. Elas falaram rapidamente, never rapidamentes.
Chains of -mente adverbs — drop all but the last
When two or more -mente adverbs are coordinated in a row — with a comma, or with the conjunctions e and ou — the suffix is written ONLY on the last one; the earlier ones fall back to the plain feminine adjective. clara e rapidamente = clearly and quickly. lenta mas firmemente = slowly but firmly. séria e profundamente = seriously and deeply. calma, paciente e cuidadosamente = calmly, patiently and carefully. The logic is that -mente is felt as a detachable piece: say it once at the end and it covers the whole chain. Two things not to overdo. First, the rule only applies when the adverbs are coordinated and modify the same thing — in separate clauses each keeps its suffix: Falou rapidamente, depois saiu lentamente. Second, a single adverb on its own always keeps it: Falou claramente. This construction lives mostly in writing and careful speech; in conversation a Brazilian is far more likely to say Falou de um jeito claro e rápido or just Falou rápido e claro.
Irregular adverbs — bem, mal, depressa, devagar
A handful of everyday adverbs never take -mente. bem = well, the adverb behind the adjective bom: Você fala bem português. mal = badly, the adverb behind mau: Dormi mal, O celular funciona mal. depressa = fast: Vem depressa! It is correct everywhere and slightly bookish in Brazil — the word that actually comes out of Brazilian mouths is rápido. devagar = slowly: Fala devagar, por favor is a sentence you'll use a lot. Others in the same family: assim (like this), logo (soon), cedo (early), tarde (late), ainda (still), já (already), mais and menos, and muito and pouco used as adverbs — muito cansado, fala pouco. Now the very Brazilian habit worth copying: bare adjectives, invariable, used as adverbs of manner. falar rápido, correr rápido, cantar bonito, custar caro, comprar barato, falar alto, falar baixo, jogar bonito. Ela fala rápido is what you'll hear ten times for every Ela fala rapidamente you'll read.
Locuções adverbiais — multi-word adverbs
Portuguese often prefers a fixed phrase to a heavy single adverb. Learn them whole. MANNER: de repente = suddenly; do nada = out of nowhere, the slangier Brazilian twin; com cuidado = carefully, more natural than cuidadosamente; com atenção = attentively; sem querer = accidentally; de propósito = on purpose; por acaso = by chance; às pressas = in a rush; às escondidas = in secret; à toa = aimlessly, for nothing; à vontade = at ease; a pé = on foot; de cor = by heart; em silêncio = in silence. CERTAINTY AND EVALUATION: sem dúvida = without a doubt; com certeza = for sure, the Brazilian favorite; por sorte = luckily; felizmente and infelizmente = fortunately and unfortunately. (In Portugal you'll hear de certeza where Brazil says com certeza — same idea, different habit.) TIME AND PLACE: de vez em quando = from time to time; às vezes = sometimes; pouco a pouco and aos poucos = little by little; de manhã, de tarde, de noite, à noite; em frente = ahead; do lado = next to it; lá em cima, aqui embaixo. Note that de cor has nothing to do with color: Sei o poema de cor = I know the poem by heart.
Position of adverbs
Placement is flexible, but there are patterns. (1) MANNER adverbs usually follow the verb or close the clause: Falou claramente, Dirige com cuidado, Ela canta bonito. (2) FREQUENCY and TIME adverbs — sempre, nunca, já, ainda, sempre que — go in front of the verb or at the head of the sentence: Sempre chegava cedo, Já comi, Nunca vi isso. (3) With compound tenses the Brazilian order puts the adverb BEFORE the auxiliary: Já tinha saído quando o telefone tocou, Sempre tenho dito isso. You will also read Tinha já saído, with the adverb wedged between auxiliary and participle — correct, and noticeably more formal. (4) muito, pouco, bastante, meio go in front of the adjective or adverb they intensify: muito feliz, pouco claro, bastante bem, meio cansada. (5) Fronting an adverb gives it weight: Felizmente, deu tempo, De repente, começou a chover, Pouco a pouco, ela foi melhorando. One thing you may never do is split -mente from its base for emphasis — no muito rápida-mente. If you want emphasis, intensify the whole word: muito rapidamente.
Common pitfalls, and how Brazilians really do it
Pitfall 1: keeping the accent. It's rapidamente, facilmente, unicamente — the acute goes away. Pitfall 2: inflecting these adverbs. They're invariable: Eles responderam rapidamente. Pitfall 3: dropping -mente from the wrong end of a chain. Right: clara e rapidamente. Wrong: clara e rápida. Pitfall 4: adjective where an adverb belongs. Ele fala bem, not ele fala bom; Ela canta mal, not ela canta má. Pitfall 5, the spelling trap every Brazilian has been corrected on at school: mal is the adverb, mau is the adjective. Dormi mal (badly) against um filme mau (a bad film). If 'badly' fits in English, it's mal. Pitfall 6: meio used as an adverb stays invariable — Ela está meio cansada, not meia cansada, even though this one slips out of Brazilian mouths all the time. Pitfall 7: depressa and devagar are opposites, and depressa sounds slightly formal here — reach for rápido in conversation and keep depressa for reading. Last, a register note: heavy -mente adverbs pile up badly in speech. Brazilians break them up with a locução — com cuidado, de um jeito estranho, sem pressa — and it sounds far more natural than three suffixes in a row.
