How we decide words' means in a sentence?

[Eveee]

A gentle reminder once a week is hardly stalking.
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what is its mean or means?
hardly has many means.
Is this sentence's mean it's forcibly reminder or little to no reminder or we can understand both of them?

[Cainntear]

A gentle reminder once a week is hardly stalking.
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what is its mean or means?
hardly has many means.
Is this sentence's mean it's forcibly reminder or little to no reminder or we can understand both of them?

There's a lot that relies on the context, but here, I assume the person saying it has been accused of stalking someone, and is saying that thing that he did very different from stalking. He is saying it is unfair to accuse him of stalking.

[Deinonysus]

Watch out for suffixes in English! They don't always mean the same thing. It can vary from word to word.

For other words, "-ly" turns an adjective into an adverb.

"He is quick. He runs quickly."

But is not the case for "hard." Also, look out for word order!

• "The bed is hard" (adjective)
• "He landed on the hard bed" (adjective: the bed is hard)
• "He landed hard on the bed" (adverb: he landed on the bed forcefully).
• "He hardly slept because of the hard bed." (adverb: he barely slept at all).

So "hard" as an adverb means forcefully, but "hardly" means barely at all.

Also, watch out for the difference between "mean" and "meaning".

• "These words mean something" (verb)
• "This word means something" (verb with 's' for 3rd person singular)
• "This word has a meaning" (meaning is a noun and is something a word has, not what a word does).