Students have requested lessons on vocabulary, so in this lesson, Mr. P./Marc will delve into the difference between "hard" and "hardly." This is part of the playlist called "confusing English." You may also find other lessons on that list. This lesson is intended for intermediate students who wish to improve their English grammar and those above levels who wish to clarify doubts about this topic.
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Mr. P. is a Canadian English Teacher/Coach from Toronto, Canada, who has been teaching English since 1997. He taught English to adults in Rome for 20 years. He graduated from Queens University and was an Honorary Fellow in the English Language at UNITELMA La Sapienza University in Rome. In the past, he was also a Language Monitor at the University of Toronto. He also taught English to many important politicians and celebrities in Italy. He is a certified English Teacher specializing in TEFL, TESL, TESOL (Arizona State University) & TOEFL.
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Hello everyone, how are you today? This is Marc. I'm doing great, thanks for asking.
We're going to talk about confusing words today but let me tell you first that there is a playlist
on my channel called Confusing English. If you watch that playlist you will see many examples
but let's just take a look at these two words hard and hardly. So hard is an adjective. It means
resistant, severe, requiring great effort. Just take a look at my example. When I lived in Canada
I experienced hard winters. Hard here is an adjective. It modifies winters as an adverb
with great force or energy. For example, he works really hard. Hard here modifies the verb
because it's an adverb. We have a list of idioms. I'm going to talk about just two of them.
Hard up, lacking something that is greatly desired. For example, she was hard up for a baby.
She wanted a baby. Another idiom, hard put, undergoing great difficulty. For example,
they were hard put to face the truth. So they didn't want to face the truth basically.
Let's look at hardly instead. Hardly, you have to consider it as the opposite of true. So as
an adverb it means barely at all, almost not, scarcely. Like my example, she hardly knew him
so she didn't know him. Probably not, as probably not. For example, it's hardly a secret the
neighbors had a feud. A feud means a fight, a quarrel. It's hardly a secret. So probably not,
probably not, probably is not a secret, right? The neighbors had a feud. Four things that you
need to remember about these two words. First, placement. So the placement of hardly in this
case. Before the main verb and after the modal or auxiliary verb. For example, Peter could,
okay modal verb could, hardly hear me. So he didn't hear me at all, for example.
Number two, do not use the negative with it. So for example, I can hardly understand him,
not I can't hardly understand him. So I can hardly understand him because hardly is negative.
The third point, time expression. So we have a time expression with hardly. So hardly ever.
It's, it almost never happens. For example, they hardly ever travel abroad. For example,
they hardly ever travel abroad. I hardly ever speak Russian, etc. The last point that I want
to mention is for formal contexts. So we use hardly at the beginning of a sentence. For example,
if you read Persuasion by Jane Austen, you would read this sentence. Hardly were they settled when
the door opened again. So hardly here is at the beginning of the sentence that we need the
auxiliary of the sentence and then the subject. So hardly were they settled when the door opened
again. I hope you enjoyed the lesson. If you have any comments, requests, or if you want to
type your own example using one of these words, you may do so under this video. Don't forget to
share the lesson if you liked it. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't,
so that next week you'll get a new lesson on your inbox. So have a great day and see you
next week with a new lesson. Take care. Bye-bye.
