Two families of adjectives
Adverbs like very, completely, highly make adjectives stronger — but they are not interchangeable. English first splits adjectives in two: gradable (more or less is possible) and extreme / absolute (all or nothing). (Antes de elegir el adverbio, decide a qué familia pertenece el adjetivo.)
Tap an adjective, then tap its box. (Toca la palabra y luego la casilla — funciona con dedo o ratón.)
Turn it up: very tired → absolutely exhausted
Slide the dial. Step 1 intensifies a gradable adjective; step 2 swaps it for the extreme adjective that already contains “very”. Watch which adverbs each step admits. (No se sube de intensidad con el mismo adjetivo: se cambia de adjetivo y de adverbio.)
Which adjectives each adverb partners
Some pairs are “fixed friends”: store them as one unit, not as two words. (Memoriza el bloque completo, no las piezas.)
Test any combination
Pick one adverb and one adjective. The meter marks the pair ✔ natural or ✘ impossible and tells you why in one line. (Prueba las combinaciones que te suenan dudosas.)
1 · Adverb
2 · Adjective
The adverbs that break the two-family rule
Errors Spanish speakers make
Spanish muy translates everything; English does not — check the adjective family first. Read the sentence, find the problem, then tap Fix. (Adivina la corrección antes de verla.)
👩🏫 For the teacher — how this page maps to the manual
- Explore is Structure 1 in four moves: the tap classifier is the gradable / extreme table (17 adjectives from the manual); the intensity dial is the “extreme adjectives already contain very” rule (tired→exhausted, cold→freezing, old→ancient, big→enormous, good→perfect); the blocks card is the collocation table (absolutely · completely · totally · highly · deeply · seriously); the meter checks any adverb + adjective pair. The special-cases card covers really, the two meanings of quite, formal highly, the fixed formal pairs and the built-in “very”; the errors card is the manual’s pitfall list.
- Build is productive: students assemble the pair by choosing the adverb (exercise C and the Homework Book gap-fills), then transform weak very + adjective into strong collocations (exercise D), with validation and a model answer.
- Drill merges the quizzes into one graded engine — 13 items, 5 ★ / 4 ★★ / 4 ★★★, each level mixing multiple choice, error-hunting and typed answers (★★★ adds the pitfalls, the two meanings of quite and the full-pair upgrade) — with a score and streak.
- Works offline. Reading/writing only — no audio.
Build the collocation
Read the sentence, then choose the adverb the adjective needs. The machine builds the pair — guess before you check.
Drill — one flow, three levels
★ natural or not, choose the adverb, first fixes · ★★ the odd one out, harder fixes, complete · ★★★ pitfalls, quite, upgrade the whole pair. Keep your streak alive. (Igual escalera que tu Cuaderno de tareas.)