Speaker 1: I've been staying up late lately trying to figure out
what to present here in the podcast. It happens in
the daytime too. Yesterday I stopped by a cafe near
my house and nearly spent the whole day thinking so
hard about this lesson. I hardly drank my coffee, but
then I tried it, and I was deeply impressed by
the deep flavor and rich aroma coming from that cup
of Joe.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City, and here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode eight nineteen when
l Y Changes Everything. Hello and welcome, thanks for joining
me for another episode of the Happy English Podcast. I'm
your English teacher, Michael, and I'm so glad you've decided
to tune in and check it out. Today we're talking
about something sneaky in English, those little adverbs that look
regular but don't act regular at all. You probably already
know the usual pattern. Take an adjective like quick d
l y and boom, you've got quickly. He's a quick runner,
he runs quickly, different words but the same meaning easy, peasy, right.
But then you run into pairs like hard and hardly
or high and highly, and suddenly it feels like the
rules just disappeared. So that's our topic today. Adjective and
adverb pairs where the meaning changes when you add l y.
Let's look at six of the most common and useful ones,
starting with one of the most confusing sets of words,
hard and hardly. As an adjective, hard means difficult, like
if someone says yesterday's exam was hard, that means it
was a difficult exam. And also as an adjective, hard
means the opposite of soft. A pillow is soft, but
the bed frame is hard. Interestingly, the word hard is
also an adverb, but the meaning is totally different. Like
when you work hard or study hard, you put in
a lot of effort. So if you say that Jenny
studied hard for the exam, you're saying that she put
in a lot of time and energy. So hard the
adjective means both difficult and firm. Hard the adverb means
with a lot of effort or energy, like it rained
hard this morning, And what about hardly? That flips everything.
If you say I hardly studied, you're saying that you
almost didn't study at all. Interesting, right, I studied hard
means I hit the books. But I hardly studied means
I slacked off, I was late. It's the same thing
with sleep. If I say I slept hard last night,
it means I slept deeply like a rock. But if
I say I hardly slept, I'm telling you that I
was tossing and turning. Maybe I got an hour of
sleep at the most. So yeah, hard and hardly super different. Now,
how about late and lately? Late is simple. It's about
being not on time, like sorry, I'm late, or Jack
always comes to work late. But when you say lately,
you're talking about something that's been happening recently. For example,
I've been feeling really tired lately, or lately I've been
trying to eat healthier. Totally different meaning, And yeah, you
can be late lately as in lately Jenny has been
working late. All right, Let's go to high and highly.
Hi usually means something is physically up in the air,
like the kite was flying really high, or that shelf
is too high for me to reach. But highly is
used more with opinions or things that are rated or judged.
So you might hear someone say she's a highly skilled doctor,
or that book is highly recommended you should check it out.
Highly adds emphasis, kind of like saying very, but in
a more formal or professional way. I highly suggest you've
visit that high mountain next on the list. Near and nearly.
If I say my office is near the train station,
I'm talking about physical location, something close by. I live
near a nice park. But nearly means almost, like I
nearly missed my train this morning, or we are nearly
done with the project. So near is about where something is,
Nearly is about how close you are to doing something
or not doing something. I nearly walked into the wall
that was near me. Okay, let's move on to deep
and deeply. Now. Deep is usually about physical space, like
where swimming in a deep lake, or he took a
deep breath before speaking. Deep can also mean very intense,
like that artist often uses deep blue in her paintings,
and this coffee has a deep flavor. But deeply is emotional.
It's about something that affects you inside. You might hear
someone say I'm deeply grateful for your help, or she
was deeply hurt by what he said. So again, deep
and deeply are similar looking, but they are used in
totally different ways. And last, but not least, let's talk
about free and freely. Free is the one we all love.
It means at no cost, like the concert tickets were free,
or help yourself. The snacks are free, aha, nothing like
a free donut. Right and free can also mean not restricted,
like when you fly, you may hear an announcement like
attention passengers, the captain has turned off the seatbelt sign,
so you are free to move about the cabin. But
freely is about doing something without restriction or hesitation, like
she spoke freely about her experience living abroad, or the
birds flew freely through the open window. So free is
a thing you are or a thing without cost, and
freely is how you do something. I'm gonna guess that
you've probably heard all of this vocabulary before, but maybe
you didn't realize just how much the meaning shifts depending
on that little l y. So next time you hear
someone say I hardly slept or he's highly respected, you'll
know exactly what they mean and you can start using
these naturally yourself and keep in mind the best way
to remember English like this and any other word or
phrase in English, is to take that word or phrase,
write it in a sentence that's true for you or
true in your world, and then memorize your sentences and
remember this. You can get more practice using your English
when you join my podcast Learner's study group. There you
can make new friends, join us for live group lessons
every week where we practice these podcast lessons together. Plus
you get access to the PDF, transcript and audio download
for every Happy English podcast in the past and in
the future. And on top of that, each episode has
exercises where you can practice this English point with speaking
and writing checked by me. To learn more, just visit
Myhappy English dot com and choose podcast lesson eight nineteen.
Remember learning another language is not easy, but it's not impossible,
and I'm here to help you on your journey.
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