GOOD or WELL 🤔 Adverb or Adjective? Confusing English Grammar

Well hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

These little but very common words can cause

English learners quite a few headaches.

They're very similar in meaning

but they're not used in the same way.

It's easy to confuse them!

So this lesson is going to be short and sweet

but we are going to get to the bottom of this.

Confusing the words 'good' and 'well'

is a really common English error.

Now there are some clear rules

that can help you to use them correctly

but there are also some exceptions to the rules

which probably leave you feeling a little bit confused.

The most helpful thing to keep in mind is that 'good'

is an adjective

and 'well' is an adverb.

They're two different parts of speech.

A quick reminder. Adjectives can modify nouns

or tell us more information about a noun.

So 'good' modifies a noun.

Something can be good.

All of these things.

Now as an adverb,

'well' modifies a verb.

An action can be done well, right?

In both these examples, 'well' is modifying the verb.

Now, nine times out of ten, most of the time,

the question you need to ask yourself is:

Am I modifying a noun or an action?

And this will help you to make the correct choice

between 'good' and 'well'.

Sweet!

But now I have to mention a significant exception

to this rule

that 'good' is the adjective and 'well' is the adverb

because when you're talking about health,

the quality of someone's health,

'well' can be used as an adjective too.

So if someone is well, it means they're healthy.

All good?

'Well' can be

an adjective when you're talking about health.

Okay are you ready for another exception?

We can actually use 'good' with some

non-action verbs like

These are stative verbs.

So we do that when we're connecting a subject

to an adjective. We can say:

Right?

Right?

So here we can use 'good' with a non-action verb.

The last little exception or rule to remember

is that 'good' can be used with the verb 'do'

when 'good' is a noun, when you're talking about

morally correct behaviour.

They help others. This is to do good.

Now word order is really important to get these words

right in your sentence because they're different

types of words,

they are treated differently in our sentence.

It's a really common mistake to say:

The adverb doesn't usually go between the verb

and the object. It goes after the object.

Right? It's something to keep in mind.

All right, you know that I like to make my lessons

practical for you so that you can practise

what you've learned during the lesson.

So are you ready to try it out?

First sentence.

Is it correct?

Because we are modifying the verb 'speak'

here in this sentence.

What about:

Is that right?

This word is an adjective.

We know because we can see the subject

followed by the verb 'be'

so I guess we could use 'well' as an adjective, right?

But English is a thing not a person

so it doesn't make sense to say that English

is in good health.

We need to use 'good' here.

Let's try another.

I want you to fill in the gaps.

Can you guess the correct word here?

The adjective or the adverb?

Good! We are modifying the noun 'day'.

But I want you to write a similar sentence with

the adverb 'well', right?

Write it in the comments now.

You might need to change the verb in that sentence

to help you.

Now the adverb is modifying the verb, right? Good job!

We're modifying the verb 'do' here.

Careful! The word that goes in this space is 'good'.

Just because we're talking about health in the sentence,

doesn't mean we need to use 'well'.

'good' or 'well'?

Well here we could actually use the adjective 'good'

or the adjective 'well'.

Both are possible but the meaning is different, right?

Think about the difference in the meaning.

'Well' means that he looked healthy.

'Good' means that he was

pleasant to look at - handsome!

What about if I said:

How would you answer that question? Would you say:

Or

It depends!

Again, you could say either.

You could use either adjective

but the meaning is slightly different.

I want to finish up today's lesson with a fixed expression

that seems to challenge these rules a little.

This one.

which means to trick someone or to fool them

so anyone who tricked their friend on April Fool's Day

can say:

which means you tricked him.

I also want to mention before we finish,

that in informal spoken English, you'll hear

native English speakers bending the rules a little.

You'll hear them use 'good' as an adverb.

Now this is not actually grammatically correct

but it's reasonably common and I really recommend

that for you guys,

you stick to the rules. Play by the rules, especially

if you are studying English to sit an exam.

So in that sense, this is incorrect

but you'll hear it all the time.

So that's it for today's lesson,

I told you it was going to be short and sweet.

And I hope it was helpful as well.

There are lots of pairs of words like this in English,

words that have similar meanings but they're used

differently in sentences.

Can you think of any others?

If you want me to make a lesson about

any more of these pairs of words,

then make sure you tell me about it in the comments.

Tell me what pairs of words

you want me to make a lesson about.

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so that I can keep you up-to-date

with all of my new lessons.

And if you've got any special requests for future lessons

then make sure you let me know

in the comments below.

And once you do that then

come and find me in one of these two lessons here.

I'll see you in there!