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'Hardly/barely ... when' and 'no sooner ... than' express two events happening almost simultaneously; both use inversion.
Side-by-side comparison
"Hardly... when" describes that something happened almost immediately before something else did. It takes the past perfect: "Hardly had I arrived when...".
Hardly had she sat down when the phone rang again.
Scarcely had he opened the door when the dog ran out into the street.
Barely had the film started when someone in the row behind began talking loudly.
"No sooner... than" describes the same immediate sequence but in a slightly more emphatic way. It also takes the past perfect: "No sooner had I arrived than...".
No sooner had I arrived home than it started to pour with rain.
No sooner had she posted the photo than her friends started commenting on it.
No sooner had we sat down at the table than the waiter brought the menus.
Common mistake
"Hardly the meeting had started when" is wrong: when the negative adverb opens the sentence, subject and auxiliary invert. Correct: "Hardly HAD THE MEETING STARTED when..." Also: "No sooner...when" is wrong: "no sooner" always uses "than".
Trick to remember it
- •"Hardly/Scarcely/Barely + inversion + WHEN".
- •"No sooner + inversion + THAN".
- •Invert subject and auxiliary just like a question: "Had he started?" → "Hardly had he started..."
Quick rule
- •"Hardly/Scarcely/Barely + HAD + subject + participle + WHEN".
- •"No sooner + HAD + subject + participle + THAN".
- •Mandatory inversion at the sentence start.
Did you know?
Inversion after negative adverbs is a remnant of the greater flexibility of Old English, where word order was much less rigid than today. In modern English, SVO order (subject-verb-object) is nearly obligatory in declarative clauses, but "pockets" of inversion survive in specific contexts: after negative adverbs (Hardly, Never, Not only, Scarcely), in questions, and in formal conditional inversion ("Had I known" = "If I had known"). Linguists call this "Subject-Auxiliary Inversion" (SAI). Using it correctly is an immediate signal of advanced mastery of written English.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
She had _____ sat down when the phone rang.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
No sooner had we left the house _____ it started to rain.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
'Not only... but also' adds emphasis to the second element; 'both... and' connects two elements with equal weight.
Past simple indicates a completed action in the past; past continuous indicates an action in progress at a specific past moment.
The second conditional expresses imaginary present or future situations; the third expresses past situations that did not happen.
'A' is used before consonant sounds; 'an' is used before vowel sounds.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy