Are there any tricks to tell if a word is an adverb, adjective, noun, or verb?

When in doubt, use the word in a sentence, then see how it's being used.

A noun will be something - a thing. It will be the thing that is acting or upon which it is being done.

A verb will be the action the noun is experiencing.

An adjective tells us more about the noun.

An adverb tells us more about the verb.

The brown dog ran quickly.

Dog is the thing in action and so is the noun.

What the dog did is run and so is the verb.

The word brown told us more about the dog - in this case its colour - and so is the adjective.

How did the dog run? Quickly - so we know more about the verb and thus "quickly" is the adverb.

Yes, there are some clues to help identify the part of speech of a word:

1. Adverbs often end in "-ly," but not all words ending in "-ly" are adverbs.
2. Adjectives modify nouns and typically answer the question "what kind?" "which one?" "how many?" or "how much?"
3. Nouns are typically names for people, places, things, or ideas.
4. Verbs express action or state of being. They can be identified by looking for words that describe actions or indicate a state of being.