When you move “quickly” to another position in the sentence, it can seem to suggest the watching was quick, not the running. That’s nonsense. But adverbs don’t always modify verbs.

"Nicely" is the adverb here as it describes how the Gorilla Monster is playing with the train. He quickly ate his breakfast. In the sentence above, the adverb 'quickly' appears before the verb 'ate'.

Sentence diagramming was once a widespread technique for teaching kids how to analyze the structure of a sentence. If you had to do it in school, you either loved it or you hated it. Most kids ...

adverb or adjective phrase? Nominative or objective? Until finally I could do it. Until finally, I could keep up with all the kids who had been standing at the chalkboard diagramming sentences for ...

"Nicely" is the adverb here as it describes how the Gorilla Monster is playing with the train. He quickly ate his breakfast. In the sentence above, the adverb 'quickly' appears before the verb 'ate'.