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

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very much for watching and i will see

you in the next

video bye