Adverbs of Frequency

In the English language, we use adverbs as a way to express how an action is performed. Adverbs are words that are used to describe a verb; however, adverbs can also be used to describe how many times an action is done and these are called adverbs of frequency.

Adverbs of frequency are used when the speaker needs to describe how many times the action occurs and there are six main adverbs we use: always, usually, often, sometimes, rarely, and never.  Each of these adverbs of frequency is assigned to a percentage of how often something happens as seen in the table below.


The adverb of frequency is used in a sentence between the subject and the verb. However, the words sometimes and usually can be used at the beginning of the sentence as well as in between the subject and the verb. 

Some example sentences using these adverbs:

She always has coffee in the morning.

This sentence says that the subject has coffee in the morning 100% of the time.

He usually goes to the market on Saturday.

This sentence implies that the subject has a routine of going to the market on Saturdays, but there might be cases where the subject won’t go.

They often go to the laundromat together.

This might seem similar to the word usually; however, usually is a stronger word than often in the English language.

We sometimes have wine with dinner.

When we use the word sometimes, we mean it happens 50% of the time.

She rarely goes to the gym because she hates to exercise.

We use the word rarely when we address something we usually don’t do or something we don't really like to do.

They never eat out.

Never is a very strong word in the English language and we only use it when we mean 0% of the time.

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Published on January 19, 2022

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