Avverbi in -mente

Adverbs in –mente
The most common type of Italian adverbs denoting manner end in -mente, equivalent to the ‘-ly’ form in English¹Not all Italian adverbs denoting manner are formed from adjectives (not even English). Two significant exceptions are bene and male that you have already learned.. All these adverbs are simply formed by adding the suffix -mente to form of the corresponding adjective (general/generale > generally/generalmente, true/vero > truly/veramente, etc.) to the feminine form of the adjective:

If the adjective ends in -le or –re preceded by a vowel, the final -e is dropped in front of -mente:

Andiamo sicuramente a trovare i tuoi genitori ‘We are definitely going to visit your parents‘
Mi piace guidare velocemente ‘I like driving fast‘
Il tuo vestito è esattamente come il mio ‘Your dress is exactly like mine‘

The adverb related to buono (good) is bene (well) and not buonamente. The adverb related to cattivo (bad) is male (badly) and not malamente.

Don’t try to make adverbs agree with anything. They always keep the same form.

Sometimes an Italian word can be correctly translated by looking for similarities with English words, but in other cases, the word has a different meaning or more than one. These words are called “False friends”. Three adverbs in -mente are among them:

• Attualmente means currently and not actually (Attualmente lavoro ‘I currently work‘). The English word actually can be rendered in Italian as veramente/realmente (Veramente/Realmente lavoro ‘I actually work‘).
• Eventualmente doesn’t mean eventually, but means possibly²Thankfully possibilmente is a true friend.(Eventualmente domani lavoro ‘Possibly tomorrow I work’). The English  eventually itself can be translated as finalmente, a more literally ways of saying finally, at last (Finalmente domani lavoro ‘I eventually/finally work tomorrow)

• • Try to write ten adverbs in -mente based on ten English adverbs in –ly, not listed above. Then use the Dictionary to check if there are correct.
  • Try to form orally ten adverbs in -mente based on ten English adverbs in –ly, not listed above. Then use Speech to Text and the Dictionary to check if they really exist in Italian.