English Adverbs of Frequency You Must Know
hi everybody welcome back to top words
my name is alicia and in this video
we’re going to talk about 10
essential adverbs of frequency and time
let’s get started okay but before we
start a quick reminder there are free
pdfs that feature vocabulary words and
phrases that you can download for free
from the link in the description this
one i think is probably the most
useful one that you can download to
practice with because these are useful
verbs that you can use
along with these adverbs of frequency
and time that i’m going to talk about
in this video so make sure you check
this one out okay let’s get to the
lesson
okay the first word is early early
so early is the opposite of late early
is used to talk about our activities a
lot when we do something before the
scheduled time or before an appointment
or whatever
we describe that as early for example
i enjoy getting home from work early
okay
next word all right the next word is
rarely
rarely so rarely is kind of a tricky
word for some people to say
rarely another way to say rarely is not
often or
not very often rarely refers to an
action that you don’t do regularly so if
you imagine this
on like a scale from zero to one hundred
percent
something that you do rarely is very
very close to zero percent of the time
very close to never so like ten 10 of
the time
or 15 of the time so something that
doesn’t happen
often or something that you don’t do
very often
you can describe that kind of action or
activity with the word
rarely for example it rains often in
april but rarely in august the next word
is
already already so we use already
when we want to talk about an expected
action
that has finished so this means an
action that we had
planned or something that we knew or we
expected
someone else was going to do and we want
to express that that action
has finished we use already to do that
like i’ve already explained the word
rarely
so something that is done that we
expected to be done
has been done we expressed that with
already
for example i’m already going to school
okay let’s check out the next one the
next word is always
always always is a super useful word so
again if you imagine a scale from zero
to one hundred percent where zero
is never and at the top is one hundred
percent
you can imagine 100 as always something
that you do
100 of the time or extremely often you
want to communicate that feeling
it can be something that you do every
day or
every week every month every year for
example
you always say that all right let’s go
on to the next one
the next word is never never so
never is the opposite of always as we
just talked about
with the previous word if we imagine 100
of the time is expressed with the word
always we can imagine at the other end
of the scale
zero percent of the time is expressed
with never
so something that you do zero percent of
the time or something that refers to
your life experience you have zero
percent life experience or zero life
experience doing something
so you use never to express this for
example
i’ve never heard this song okay
the next word is now now so
now refers to the present time
so we’re not talking about frequency
with this we’re referring to a point in
time in this case the present moment so
right now
i’m talking to you now you’re listening
to me and so on
another example it ate too much and now
my stomach hurts
okay on to the next one often often
so often refers to something that you do
regularly so it doesn’t mean it’s
something that you do every day
necessarily or even every week but a
regular
activity that you do with some kind of
schedule
generally so you can use this in a
question like how often do you blah blah
or you can talk about your own
activities with like i often do
blah blah blah so this is very common
with question patterns in addition to
responses
for example how often do you work out
okay the next word is usually usually
so usually is like a step above often
so again if we imagine these words on
like a
scale often refers to something that you
do regularly
it’s a little higher on a scale than
sometimes usually it’s a little higher
on the scale
than often so usually refers to
something that you do
a little more regularly than often
so something that you do maybe every
morning or
most mornings or something that you do
most
mondays so you can kind of think of
usually as something that you do
most of the time like i usually
wake up and then go back to sleep
that’s true or i usually
don’t make steak for breakfast
okay in this example sentence i don’t
usually eat breakfast
the next word is occasionally
occasionally
so occasionally you can imagine as the
same
meaning really as sometimes sometimes
and occasionally
have the same meaning yes but
occasionally sounds a little bit more
formal so i personally would not use
occasionally in everyday conversation
with my friends
i would probably use it in a
conversation
at work maybe where i needed to sound
more polite
or in a more formal maybe email for
example
in other cases like with friends and
family when i’m talking in those
situations i would probably use
sometimes but occasionally expresses the
same
feeling so you could say something like
i occasionally check the information on
our company’s website to make sure that
everything is up to date
or in this example sentence i
occasionally travel to asia
on business all right let’s go to the
next one
the next word is still still so
still for this video refers
to a condition or a status that remains
the same so if we want to express that
something
some condition or status has not changed
from a previous status
you can use still to express that you’ll
also notice that some people use
still to express like a time or a
condition
that hasn’t changed but that you feel
has
changed for example in this example
sentence we see
it’s still five o’clock it’s still five
o’clock
you would hear this in a situation where
maybe for example it’s very very dark
suddenly and you’re like oh gosh it
seems so late
you check your watch oh it’s still five
o’clock
so that expresses that even though it
seems the condition or status has
changed
in fact the truth of the situation is
that it stills it remains this early
time
so when you want to express that lack of
change you can also do that with
still especially when you’re talking
about time okay let’s go to the next
word
the next word is sometime sometimes so i
talked about
sometimes earlier in relation to the
word occasionally
sometimes and occasionally have that
same feeling but sometimes sounds more
conversational more casual so we use
sometimes a lot in conversation
if you want to imagine sometimes on our
scale of
never to always sometimes is right in
the middle at about 50 percent
so sometimes i like to watch tv until
late at night
or sometimes i forget to call my mom on
her birthday
not for long though or sometimes i
choose the wrong thing to eat for lunch
and then my stomach is
unhappy that’s true in this example
sentence sometimes i’m right
okay the next word is then then
so we use then to show progression
of activities or like progression of
status so
you might hear somebody telling a story
and saying
then or and then and then so that shows
the next
action in a series or the next action in
a story
so you can do this actually a lot in
your everyday life when you talk about
your day
like i woke up and then i ate breakfast
and then i took a shower and then i went
to work and then i went to school
so then shows that progression in this
example sentence
then i want to go to the beach all right
so that is
everything those were 10 essential
frequency
and time adverbs i hope that that was
helpful for you
of course if you have any questions or
comments or if you want to practice
making an example sentence with these
words please feel free to do so in the
comment section of this video
also don’t forget to click the link in
the description to get the free
pdf cheat sheet i talked about earlier
and much more
you can check it out and learn some more
useful english words and phrases
you can download them you can keep them
on your phone you can put them on your
computer print them out whatever you
want to do to study so
hope you enjoyed this video don’t forget
to give it a like and a share and
subscribe if you have not already thanks
very much for watching and i will see
you in the next
video bye