 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 neighbor's 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 neighbor's 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, a 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 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 contests. 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. Then 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.