The words always, usually, often, occasionally, seldom, sometimes, rarely and never which are written in bold in the dialogues above are called ‘frequency adverbs’. They describe how often an action happens.

Examples

1. Helen always goes out on Sundays.
2. Aster usually drives into the city centre with her brother.
3. Beyene and Dawit often go lunch together.
4. In the winter, we sometimes have very heavy rains.
5. Few students rarely go to the cinema in the summer. because they
6. I SOMETIMES prefer to stay outside.
7. As students are so busy, they never go to bed before 10 o’clock.
8. Sometimes she does her homework with friends.
9. Usually they study on their own.10.Students should usually try to get meanings of words from contexts they are used.

The adverbs of frequency can also be used after the modal verbs as in the following examples.

1. You must always try your best.
2. We can usually find a seat on our train.
3. We should not always depend on dictionaries to for meanings of words.
4. They should never be rude to customers.

To make questions about frequency, we can use ‘how often…?’ and using the ‘do verbs.

Examples

1. How often do you watch films?
2. How often does he play tennis?
3. How often do the trains arrive late?
4. Do you often come here?
5. Does she always work so hard?
6. Do they ever pay on time? (‘ever’ instead of ‘never’ for questions)

2.

3.

4.

Answer key

Write the correct past continuous forms of the verbs in brackets.

1. were you doing
2. was trying
3. were you reading

Answer the following questions with simple past and past continuous.

1. switched off… was making