Hello and welcome to today's English lesson my name is Stuart in today's
lesson we're going to be looking at how we use hardly scarcely and barely in
English let's go to the intro now as I said today's lesson is looking at hardly
scarcely and barely the pronunciation hardly scarcely and barely and these
three words have very very similar meanings and we can use them almost
interchangeably now which one you use depends on the moment and perhaps you
use hardly perhaps you don't use scarcely and perhaps you're thinking
about using barely but you're not really confident so this lesson is going to
show you how we can use these three for the same meaning now we're going to look
at the first example hardly then we'll look at scarcely and then barely now
hardly means only just almost not and it can also mean certainly not I put an
asterisk next to certainly not so we can see the difference in meaning because
only just and almost not have one meaning and certainly not has a
different type of meaning so let's have a look at the examples
she has hardly any free time nowadays she has hardly any free time so it means
that she has almost no free time ok she's a very very busy person she has
hardly any free time nowadays so this meaning here almost not ok the next one
we hardly ever go to the cinema we hardly ever go to the cinema so here
again we almost never go to the cinema almost never we don't
have time to go to the cinema anymore we prefer to watch Netflix we prefer to
watch television so we hardly ever go to the cinema okay
so we can see they use there what's wrong with you somebody asks you
can hardly walk so a friend of yours has a problem maybe he had an accident he
has trouble walking so what's wrong with you you can hardly walk or you can only
just walk or you can almost not walk at all okay so we can see that we're using
hardly here to mean those two now you will notice that we often see any ever
the modal verb can as well and we can also say at all so these are very
commonly used with hardly hardly any hardly ever hardly at all or can hardly
okay so we can use those quite often with hardly for this particular meaning
so we hardly ever you can hardly walk or hardly any and as I said hardly at all
as well we can also say okay so those are three now this last example here I
like his last movie but I'd hardly say it was his best piece of work here we're
meaning certainly not now the difference here between these two meanings and this
one is quite stark it's quite a lot okay it's a different level perhaps you
haven't seen hardly used in this sense but it means certainly not so I liked
his last movie but I certainly not say or I'd hardly say it was his best piece
of work because I liked his other movies movies that he has done previously okay
those are the movies that I like more than this one it was good I liked the
movie but I hardly say it was his best piece of work okay so here meaning
certainly not now before we continue I'll just say that you have to be
careful with hard and hardly so for example if you say I work hard it means
that you work a lot but if you hardly work it means that you almost don't work
at all I hardly work okay because the economy is not very good
I hardly work nowadays okay almost not now scarcely scarcely again meaning
almost not only just so similar and it can also mean certainly not as well
we'll have a look at that example here so she was scarcely able to walk after
her accident she was scarcely able to walk after her accident
so relating to this one here okay this person can hardly walk so she was
scarcely able to walk after her accident she had trouble walking okay she was
only just able to walk or almost not able to walk okay
scarcely able to walk we had scarcely started eating when the alarm went off
so we sat down we started eating then ding-ding-ding-ding-ding the alarm went
off so we had scarcely started eating when the alarm went off now this is
example that we can use scarcely or hardly as well for something that
happens immediately after something else so we had scarcely started eating
we only just started eating when the alarm went off
ding-ding-ding okay so only just scarcely started eating and the third
example here sacking half the team was scarcely his best decision okay
certainly not so sacking half the team was certainly
not his best decision because how are they going to win a game if he sacked
half the team so sacking half the team was scarcely his best decision so hardly
and scarce we used almost identically in these
sentences here we could easily replace scarcely for hardly she was hardly able
to walk after her accident okay and the third example we have is barely barely
barely meaning almost not an only just now there is an extra meaning of barely
but it's not really related to how we use it here so barely meaning almost not
and only just examples his salary is barely enough to make ends meet his
salary is barely enough he doesn't make a lot of money his salary is barely
enough to make ends meet okay his salary is not enough to even feed his family
some weeks his salary is low okay he can only just make ends meet can you turn up
the volume I can barely hear what they are saying I can barely hear what
they're saying so only just here or almost not at all
so can you turn up the volume I can barely hear what they are saying and the
last example the plane had barely taken off when the pilot decided to come back
so the plane had only just taken off when the pilot decided to turn around
and come back because of some type of emergency maybe there was no fuel maybe
one of the passengers was ill and the pilot had to turn around the plane and
come back so the plane had barely taken off when we had to come back so this is
how we use hardly scarcely and barely in English now thank you very much for
watching the lesson questions or comments leave them in the section below
share the video on social media please with your friends if your friends are
learning English share this video with them remember to give the video a thumbs
up if you liked it I'll see you in the next video English lesson have a
good day bye