What’s the difference between the words hard and hardly? Although they sound like different forms of the same word, they actually have very different meanings. My student discovered this when she was thinking of adverbs to fill in a worksheet. Fiorella, an advanced English speaker who is learning sentence and essay-writing skills, filled in one of the sentences like this:
The wind blew hardly but the rain fell gently.
What’s wrong with the use of the word hardly in this sentence? Fiorella was trying to show the contrast between a hard (or strong or fierce) wind and gently falling rain. However, although hard is an adjective, hardly, as an adverb, means “barely” or “minimally.” So, in this context, it sounds like the wind is not blowing much at all. A better adverb to replace hardly in the sentence might be strongly or fiercely.
Following, are some examples of how to use the adverb hardly correctly:
- Although it’s winter, it hardly feels cold.
- Even though the party had hardly started, Janine was already tired and ready to go home.
- It has hardly rained at all this month; I need to water my orchids.