Hello everyone,

This kind of things is very complicated to me.
Here are examples by myself:

1. He speaks almost no English.
2. He does not almost speak English.
3. He almost does not speak English.
4. He does not speak English almost.

I think #1 is correct,but not sure about whether #2 is, and I am totally lost about 3 & 4.
I notice "almost" is an adverb, so I think it should be correct to put "no", an adjective, after it.

Then what about,
5. He is almost not a friend of mine.
6. He is not almost a friend of mine.
7. He does not almost get the money.
8. He almost does not get the money.

Do 5-8 make sense?
I think 5 is OK, and maybe 8.

If there exist "almost not" and "not almost", what do they mean in general?


Many thanks.

The phrase " almost no..." is a colloquial way of saying "very little" or "few". As with most colloquialisms it doesn't stand up to grammatical or rhetorical scrutiny. It's something which many people use - but no-one parses!

The reason it's classified as a colloquialism is because it isn't used literally. (Just as "literally" has now been accepted by a very large group of people as meaning "figuratively"). It's usage has become hyperbolic: it doesn't MEAN 'almost no'. Usually it means little/few/not the ones I want.

e.g. someone could stand in front of a bulging wardrobe and say "I've got almost nothing to wear." They don't mean there's only one or two items that they could choose from; they mean that they want to go shopping! (They don't fancy any of the clothes they already own.)

"Who's at the party?"
"Almost no-one." this doesn't mean that there are only three forlorn party-goers in a big empty room: it often means "There's no-one we know there."

In this respect - casual usage - it's commonly understood.

It's too hazy and indefinable for formal or "good" writing/speech:- it's usage is better expressed as few, little, not, as I said above.

"He speaks almost no English." = "He speaks very little English." "He doesn't speak much English."
"We've got almost no money in the bank. = "We've very little money in the back." " We don't have much money in the bank."
"Last year we had hundreds of people at our Open Day - almost no-one came this year. = "The numbers were low in comparison to last year." "We had a lot less people this year compared to last."

(The first in each pair of sentences is a direct 'translation'. The second is the usage most people would use.)

Does that help?