Learn how to use these words correctly!

hardly, on the contrary, 'many' and 'much', 'many', 'much', 'most' and 'some' + of

You will also come across examples such as: 'I hardly know her' (= I do not know her very well);
'I hardly slept all night' (= I got almost no sleep all night).

「夕べほとんど寝なかった。」therefore is equivalent to 'I got almost no sleep last night/I hardly slept at all last night/I hardly got any sleep last night.'
「最近ほとんどテレビを見ない。」is equivalent to 'I've been watching almost no television recently/I've watched hardly any television at all recently/Nowadays I hardly ever watch television.'

b) hardly + can/could meaning 'It is difficult/almost impossible to'

I am so excited, I can hardly wait for the concert to begin.
This is so heavy, I can hardly lift it.
I could hardly believe it when I heard that you were leaving Keio.


c) hardly + present/past perfect meaning '(have/had) only just (-ed)'

Please don't put the food away. I have hardly started eating.
She had hardly begun to read when it was time to get off the train.

d) hardly (+ likely/surprising/reasonable) meaning 'It is unlikely/unsurprising/ unreasonable'

Since they have worked so hard, they are hardly likely to fail the test.
Since they only left the house at 10:30, it is hardly surprising that they missed the 11:00 train.
It is hardly reasonable to expect me to look after the dog all by myself when you were the one who wanted to buy it.
It is hardly going to rain today. There is not a cloud in the sky.

2. on the contrary

This has a different meaning from 'on the other hand' (which is close to the meaning of 「一方」.
'A. On the other hand, B' is used when B is different from A. In many cases, B is the opposite of A. For example:

Economic development is vitally important for Third World countries. On the other hand, this development must be carefully controlled so that levels of pollution do not rise to unsafe levels.

We all know that Japan's energy resources are limited. On the other hand. we are not willing to reduce are own personal energy use.

'A. On the contrary, B' is close to the meaning of 「却って」. It is used when B strongly denies that A is valid. B is always the opposite of A. It is mainly used by a second speaker in order to contradict what the first speaker has said. For example:
'If you were a kind teacher, you would let us sleep during classes.'
'On the contrary, truly kind teachers want their students to study during class time, not sleep'

You are unlikely to want to use 'on the contrary' when writing a student paper, since writers do not normally want to deny or contradict something which they have just written. You might, however, use it when strongly denying a point of view that you want to attack. For example:

Most consumers assume that there is no limit to the resources of this world. On the contrary, there is a limit, and the speed with which we are approaching that limit is growing faster every day.

3. 'many' and 'much'

'Many' is used with the plural forms of countable nouns:
Many Japanese students wish to study in America.

'Much' is used with uncountable nouns, which have no plural form at all:
There is not much time left.

4. 'many' 'much', 'most' and 'some' + of

'of' is only used with these words if 'the', 'my', 'us' etc. is used after them. For example:
It will be difficult to reach agreement on the proposed restrictions because some people are against them. (Note: we do not have any specific information about the people.)

Some of the people who sent e-mails are against the restrictions. (Note: we are referring to a specific group of people, those who sent e-mails.)

Some other examples:

Most students work hard.
Most of the students in my classes work hard, but some of them do not.
Many of their friends are interested in economics.
I spend much of my time reading English books.