English Grammar Hack: Where should you put the adverb?

hi i'm rebecca from invid let's start this lesson with a little exercise okay now i want you to tell me which of these three sentences is correct do we say never i drive to work or i never drive to work or i drive never to work one of them is correct two of them are wrong which one is right think about it for a second okay so i hope you said that this one is right and the others are wrong but the point is why should it be like that okay maybe it's not like that in your language why is it like that in english and is it always like that in english how are you supposed to know okay it's not easy one of the things that you need to do when you're learning another language like english is to not only learn vocabulary but also to know where to put that vocabulary in the sentence right you need to know the correct word order the natural word order and it's not always easy to know that so in this lesson i'm going to focus on teaching you adverbs of frequency which you know you know these words but i'm going to give you a simple system so that you know exactly where to put these words when you're constructing a sentence okay there is a system and it does vary but it's also easy for you to learn once you understand the system so what are adverbs of frequency well these are words which are basically telling us about time how often you do something okay um for example words like never which is zero percent of the time all the way to always which is a hundred percent of the time or sometimes which is half of the time 50 50. or words like rarely seldom could be anywhere from ten to fifteen twenty percent of the time or words like often and usually which might be seventy to eighty percent of the time okay so what you probably know these words and you may be using them already but if you're not using them in the right position then you're going to sound awkward okay and unnatural and what i want to do is to help you to sound more natural and more fluent okay so let's learn the system okay so for adverbs of frequency there are actually three patterns that you can follow that will make your life easier and every time you follow that pattern you will be right okay i'm not giving you all of the variations i'm just giving you the patterns that will make sure that you are always right okay let's start with the first two patterns so we put the adverb of frequency after the verb to be but we put the adverb of frequency before other verbs all other verbs okay let me give you an example so i am okay the verb to be i am usually on time or she was always polite okay so here you saw whether it was in the present tense or past tense doesn't matter it's the verb to be so what does it mean it goes the the adverb of frequency usually always never all those stuff goes after the verb okay but look what happens when we have all of the other words verbs in the english language it goes the the adverbs of frequency go before the verb for example i usually arrive on time what's the verb arrive so the adverb goes before it here she always spoke politely so the verb spoke and the adverb goes before it okay so with the verb to be it goes after with all other verbs it goes before all right by following this pattern you will always be right okay that's for these two now there is one other situation and i'm going to show you what that is in just a second all right so now let's look at the third pattern so when the verb consists of more than one word for example when we have an auxiliary verb or we have a helping verb or we have a modal verb so then we have let's say the helping part or the modal part and then we have the main verb then we put the adverb of frequency in the middle okay so we sometimes put it before we sometimes put it after but in this case we're putting it in the middle okay so let's look at the example so you'll understand clearly and what do i mean by auxiliary verbs and modal verbs words like this will which we use for the future right the have which we use in the perfect tenses may might can could would should okay so these are usually followed by a verb i may go i can go i would go right so if you have an adverb of frequency you put it between those all right let's look at an example i will always love you there was a famous song by that by that name right by whitney houston i will always love you all right she has always been brilliant has been always goes in the middle okay they would always visit us would visit always goes in the middle should you should always look both ways before crossing the street should and look always goes in the middle he can always call me can call always goes in the middle and we could always leave early could leave always goes in the middle all right did you get that okay so now let's practice what we've learned with these three patterns in the quiz that we're going to do right now all right so let's do our review okay but before you start the examples let's do a quick review of the actual principles so the adverbs of frequency will go before most verbs after the verb to be and between two-part verbs like auxiliary verbs or modal verbs and so on okay all right so try to apply those principles number one it is great to see you so where could we put the word always it is great to see you where can you put the word always think about it so i'll help you analyze this one a little bit if you don't know automatically okay so what's the verb here is right so after the verb to be it goes after right so it is always it's always great to see you good number two he checks his email at noon we want to put in the word usually he checks his email at noon what's the verb checks so it goes before most verbs so it would go here okay i'm not going to write it but you understand he usually checks his email at noon good number three they will agree to that price you want to put the word never so where do you put that look at the sentence they will never agree right i heard you because here we have one of those two-part verbs right will it and agree so it goes in between number four it's cold in march where do we put the word usually yes good we put it here it's usually called in march why we had the verb to be again so it goes after that verb number five you should confirm your flight where should we put the word always so look at the sentence this is it right two parts goes in the middle you should always confirm your flight and number six she calls on saturday where do we put the word often okay here's our verb this is like most verbs so it goes here she often calls on saturday okay now just for you to know what i've done here is given you the easiest rules that you can follow to always be right some of these adverbs of frequency can go in other places at other times but not always so rather than trying to remember 17 rules i think it's easier for you to learn three rules and always be right all right now if you'd like some more practice with this which is always helpful please go to our website at www and there you can do a quiz on this which will help you to reinforce those principles very well and while you're at invid you can also check out some of our other lessons which we may be linking to in fact from the in our lesson description so that you can uh also learn more about adverbs of frequency in general if you're not too sure about them okay and don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel for lots of other grammar hacks and vocabulary hacks and english hacks in general to help you learn faster and more easily okay thanks very much for watching bye for now

Channel: Learn English with Rebecca · engVid

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Keywords: never, always, sometimes, sometime, often, rarely, seldom, adverbs, word order, English grammar, learn English, English class, English, native speaker, ESL, vocabulary, English vocabulary, engVid, speak English, expressions, idioms, phrasal verbs, spoken English, lessons, IELTS, TOEFL, accent, TOEIC, anglais, inglese, inglés, Englisch, англи́йский, angielski, engleză, anglicky, αγγλικά, İngilizce, إنجليزي, Inggris, Angol, TESOL, TESL, TEFL

Id: CtV77aDVM4U

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 19 2021