Nouny Adverbs
“One rotten apple rots a bagful.” - Irish Proverb
There’s another set of adverbs that fall into the “noun” category. Technically, they’re called “nominal adverbs,” but I’m guessing if you’re like me, you don’t know what that means. Basically, they’re noun-like adjectives used as adverbs. When you use them, you don’t need to add anything at all (or change anything at all). They’re just placed right before the verb. For example:
たくさん たべました
I ate a lot
かなり たべました
Ate a considerable amount
The following words are all great words to know. In terms of the pattern you learned on the last page, only part of them work exactly the same (adverb+verb=win). Others are used in different ways, which we’ll work on in a bit (as in, not all of them follow the adverb+verb pattern). For the most part, this comes off in a way that makes sense, though we’ll go through each word (and I’ll give you a great cheat sheet to use and study with). To be honest, it’s one big pile of mess, but for now, your only job is to learn these words. Like I said before, these are really, really great words to know. Most people don’t study them all together like this, but I think doing it this way will end up giving you a ton of benefit. They really do group together quite nicely, and by learning these words, your Japanese goes up a level, almost automatically.
So, start studying these words now. You’ll want to have gotten through at least half of them before moving on, then the next half by the end of the next page. Keep studying this list – I can’t stress enough how great these words are just to know. Read through this list first, then download the Anki deck and vocab list (below).
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| とても | Very |
| すこし | A little |
| ぜんぶ・すべて | All |
| けっこう | Good Enough / Fairly |
| ずっと | Continuously |
| もっと | More |
| ぜんぜん | Not At All |
| たくさん | A Lot |
| いっぱい | Full / To Capacity |
| ほとんど | Almost |
| だいたい | Generally |
| いつも | Always |
| ときどき | Sometimes |
| たいてい | Usually |
| ゆっくり | Slowly |
| ぐっすり | Soundly (Sleeping) |
| なかなか | Quite |
| まいにち | Every Day |
| きのう | Yesterday |
| きょう | Today |
| あした | Tomorrow |
| かつて | Previously |
| すぐ | Soon |
| もう | Already |
| まだ | Still |
| まず | First Of All |
| とうとう | Finally |
| ぜひ | Certainly, Without Fail |
| いったい | What On Earth!? What The!? |
| たぶん | Maybe |
| きっと | Definitely |
| まさか | No Way |
Here’s that Anki deck I promised. Take it a few at a time, and try to cram a few words before you start each study session!
Adverbs on Anki
Also, for your reference is a PDF of all the words. Don’t use it as a crutch, use it to study and really learn these words!
Nouny Adverbs Vocab List (PDF)
After you’ve gotten a good way through this list, you can move on. The next page is all about learning how to use these adverbs. They are a lot more flexible than the adverbs you learned on the previous page, meaning it’s going to take experience (rather than learning rules) to understand them. Might as well get started on that “experience” thing now, at least a little bit!