hard
- hardly
‘hard’
Hard can be an adjective. If something is hard, it is not easy to do.
Coping with three babies is very hard work.
Hard can also be an adverb. For example, if you work hard, you work with a lot of effort.
Many elderly people have worked hard all their lives.
‘hardly’
Hardly is an adverb. It has a totally different meaning from hard. You use hardly to modify a statement when you want to emphasize that only a small amount or detail makes it true, and it is best to consider the opposite as true. For example, if someone hardly speaks, they do not speak much. If something is hardly surprising, it is not very surprising.
I hardly knew him.
Nick hardly slept because he was so worried.
If you use an auxiliary verb or modal with hardly, you put the auxiliary verb or modal first. You say, for example, ‘I can hardly see’. Don't say ‘I hardly can see’.
Two years before, the wall had hardly existed.
She can hardly wait to begin.
We could hardly move.
Be careful
Don't use ‘not’ with hardly. Don't say, for example, ‘I did not hardly know him’. Say ‘I hardly knew him’.
Don't use ‘not’ with hardly. Don't say, for example, ‘I did not hardly know him’. Say ‘I hardly knew him’.
Hardly is sometimes used in longer structures to say that one thing happened immediately after another.
The local police had hardly finished their search when the detectives arrived.
Be careful
In structures like these you use when, not ‘than’. Don't say, for example, ‘The local police had hardly finished their search than the detectives arrived’.
In structures like these you use when, not ‘than’. Don't say, for example, ‘The local police had hardly finished their search than the detectives arrived’.
In stories, hardly is sometimes put at the beginning of a sentence, followed by had or the verb be and the subject.
Hardly had he uttered the words when he began laughing.
‘hardly ever’
If something hardly ever happens, it almost never happens.
I hardly ever spoke to them.
Tim hardly ever met her friends.