Mal posso esperar!

By James Hall / / (2) Beginning Portuguese
mal posso esperar

I can hardly wait!

I found it really difficult to learn how to say things like,

mal posso in portuguese'barely', 'hardly', and 'scarcely' -- staples of english communication 😉

I would always come up with: "não posso esperar" (I am unable to wait) or, "não tenho como esperara" (I don't have any way to wait).

✻ It never felt right until I discovered that mal can be used to express the hardly/barely part.

This may seem counter-intuitive as mal also means like evil, wrong, bad...

Using mal to express hardly

Eu mal posso esperar. ➜ I can hardly wait.

You are basically saying: I can badly wait 😳.

Ele mal pode andar. ➜ He can hardly walk.

Ele mal pode falar. ➜ He can hardly talk.

*You can use CONSEGUIR here as well!

Ela mal podia (or, conseguia) falar. ➜ She was barely able to speak

Ele mal podia fazê-lo. ➜ He was hardly able to do it.

*Using Object Pronoun shortcuts here to combine the "it" with the the verb FAZER ➜ fazê-lo 🧑🏼‍🔬

✻The format is always mal + poder (or conseguir) to express hardly/barely this way.