Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Jerry Chen]

Hello,

As the sentence says, "If you are friendly, nice, and genuinely yourself, people will definitely like you."

I wonder why "genuinely" instead of "genuine" is used in the above sentence.


Thanks for your help!!

[CP]

The sentence says that if you are (among other things) yourself = not trying to be or act like someone else, people will like you. The adverb "genuinely" is there to say if you are really, truly not trying to act like someone else.

You could write the sentence as, "If you are friendly, nice, and genuine yourself, people will definitely like you," but that is a little different. Then it would mean if you are (among other things) genuine = not phony, sincere, people will like you.

The two sentences are similar but a tiny little bit different depending upon whether you leave out the "ly." Of course, if you are genuine, not phony, sincere, you are probably being yourself, not trying to act like someone else, but the emphasis is just a little different between the two.
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