barely took 20 minutes

[keannu]

"barely" is hard to interprete, in this case it means "almost less than 20 minutes", a little bit positive meaning, but as in "There was barely any smell", it means "almost no", a negative meaning. How do you tell the difference?

st94)Today I participated in community service work in a garden area. What was great to see there was that most of the students barely took 20 minutes to finish their lunch....

 

[5jj]

How do you tell the difference?

Context

 

[Route21]

"Barely" in both contexts translates as "hardly".

It took hardly/barely 20 minutes.
There was hardly/barely any smell.

Hope this helps
Regards
R21

 

[emsr2d2]

"Barely" is hard to interpret, in this case it means "almost less than 20 minutes", a little bit positive meaning ...

"Barely" doesn't mean "almost less than" anything. I find "almost less than" rather unusual and I can't think of many ways to use it.

It barely takes twenty minutes = It takes very nearly twenty minutes, maybe nineteen minutes and thirty seconds.