often
part of speech
adverb (often, more often, most often; also oftener)
meaning for a pupil
1) Often means many times. If you often play, you play a lot. tree →
2) «How often» asks how many times something happens in a time, like each day or week. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths: how frequently something happens; «how often» asks about times per day or week; «every 15 minutes» answers it. In everyday life: habits and routines («I often walk to school»). In science: «how often» an event happens is its frequency. In stories: «as often as not», «every so often».
examples
- How often does the bus come? tree →
- She often reads before bed. tree →
- The bus comes every 15 minutes, so how often in an hour? tree →
- We often go to the beach in summer. tree →
- How often do you brush your teeth? Twice a day. tree →
- It often rains in Ireland. tree →
- Every so often, a shooting star crosses the sky. tree →
- Dogs often wag their tails when they are happy. tree →
- False confidence often leads to disaster. tree →
note
«How often» asks for a rate or number of times. Plain «often» carries no number. Trap: do not guess a number from «often». The «t» is often silent, but saying it is also correct. Order of frequency words: always, usually, often, sometimes, rarely, never.
In the corpora
- Night shifts mean working through the night and sleeping in the day; nurses, drivers, bakers and warehouse workers often do them.
- Job hunting means searching adverts and sending applications, often dozens before getting anywhere; many get no reply at all.
- Employers often glance at a CV for less than a minute, so grown-ups fuss over every word.
- Payday is the day pay arrives in the bank, often once a month, so money is usually lowest just before it.
- Rent is often a family's biggest bill, so when it goes up, other spending has to shrink.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «often» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.