She cooks well vs She is a good cook (2025)

Hello everyone,

I'd like a native speaker to tell me if my idea about the use of the following constructions is correct. In over 25 years of studying English, I've noticed that sentences like "She cooks very well" or "He drives badly" are mostly found in books for beginners or children's books (especially ones written by non-native speakers) while in everyday speech or in books meant for advanced learners I see something like "She is a good cook" and "He is a poor driver". Could a native speaker please tell me if sentences like the two in cursive sound unidiomatic or unusual albeit grammatically correct? Should I tell my students to avoid such constructions so as to sound more natural?

Thank you.

I think both are natural and fine though the constructions with adverbs are just slightly more formal. It's important to be able to use both and very important to make sure your students know that good is not an adverb as many native speakers seem to think!

Just as a nitpick, I'd say 'he drives poorly' and 'he's a bad driver.' Or in the lowest diction with friends 'he's a crappy driver.'

BLUEGLAZE said:

Unfortunately, in spoken English (at least AE), adverbs are not being used regularly. As an example, people say "Drive safe" or "Drive slow".

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I'm glad you qualified it with "at least AE". This abhorrent practice is much less common in BE. We speak proper.

Xander2024 said:

Hello everyone,

I'd like a native speaker to tell me if my idea about the use of the following constructions is correct. In over 25 years of studying English, I've noticed that sentences like "She cooks very well" or "He drives badly" are mostly found in books for beginners or children's books (especially ones written by non-native speakers) while in everyday speech or in books meant for advanced learners I see something like "She is a good cook" and "He is a poor driver". Could a native speaker please tell me if sentences like the two in cursive sound unidiomatic or unusual albeit grammatically correct? Should I tell my students to avoid such constructions so as to sound more natural?

Thank you.

Click to expand...

Your observations are spot-on as far as idiomatic AE is concerned .... except the expressions are in italics, not cursive.