Yoruba Adverbs
Learning the Yoruba Adverbs is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The more you master it the more you get closer to mastering the Yoruba language. But first we need to know what the role of Adverbs is in the structure of the grammar in Yoruba.
Yoruba adverbs are part of speech. Generally they're words that modify any part of language other than a noun. Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences and other adverbs. Here are some examples:
| English Adverbs | Yoruba Adverbs |
| adverbs | |
| I read a book sometimes | Mo ma nka iwe kan nigba kankan |
| I will never smoke | Nko ni mu ciga |
| are you alone? | Se odawa ni? |
As you can see from the example above, the structure of the Adverbs in Yoruba has a logical pattern. Locate the Adverbs above and see how it works with the rest of the sentence in Yoruba.
List of Adverbs in Yoruba
Below is a list of the Adverbs of time place manner and frequency in Yoruba placed in a table. Memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your Yoruba vocabulary.
| English Adverbs | Yoruba Adverbs |
| adverbs of time | |
| yesterday | Ana |
| today | Eni or Loni |
| tomorrow | Ola |
| now | Nisisiyin |
| then | Nigbaye |
| later | Tobaya |
| tonight | Lale oni or ale oni |
| right now | Nisisiyin |
| last night | Ale ana |
| this morning | Owuro yi |
| next week | Ose to nbo |
| recently | Laipe yi |
| lately | Laipe yi |
| soon | Laipe yi |
| immediately | Kiakia |
| still | Sibe or sibe sibe |
| yet | Sibe or sibe sibe |
| ago | Laipe yi |
| adverbs of place | |
| here | Nibiyi |
| there | Nibeye |
| over there | Nibeye |
| everywhere | Gbogbo ibi |
| anywhere | Gbogbo ibi |
| nowhere | Kosibi |
| home | Ile |
| out | Ode or ita |
| adverbs of manner | |
| very | Gan |
| quite | Idake |
| pretty | Rewa |
| really | Looto |
| fast | Yara |
| well | Odaa or Odara |
| hard | Lile |
| quickly | Kiakia |
| slowly | diedie |
| carefully | sora |
| hardly | sasa |
| barely | sasa |
| mostly | opo or opolopo |
| absolutely | dandan |
| together | lapapo |
| alone | daduro |
| adverbs of frequency | |
| always | Gbogbogba |
| frequently | leralera |
| usually | leralera |
Adverbs of time place manner and frequency have a very important role in Yoruba, therefore they need very special attention. Once you're done with Yoruba Adverbs, you might want to check the rest of our Yoruba lessons here: Learn Yoruba. Don't forget to bookmark this page.