had hardly done sth when…中，done发生了吗？

参考书例句：I had hardly got to the office when my wife phoned me to go back home at once. 翻译为：我刚刚到办公室，这时我的妻子突然打来电话叫我回家。
牛津词典上也有类似的例句。
为什么这里不译为“我马上就要到办公室了，这时……”
为什么She had almost reached her destination when... 就译为“她快到目的地时……”
这里的almost不能等价代换成hardly吗？
hardly和almost不是都有“几乎”的意思吗？
I was hardly hit by the car.不是译为：''我差点被车撞''吗？
(Source: Zhihu)
(answered by: alexcwlin; edited by: Adam Lam)

The word “hardly” is not synonymous with “almost”.

In the examples you quoted: (a) “hardly” means “as soon as” which means one event quickly follows another (紧接发生), and (b) “almost” means “not yet, but very close to happening (差一点儿就发生).

Therefore (a) “hardly” translated as “刚刚” and (b) “almost” translated as “快” are proper.

To elaborate a little more, in your example which involves “hardly”, there are two events (i) “got to office” and (ii) “wife phoned”. Both those 2 events had already happened. Event “got to office” happened first, then immediately afterwards, “wife phoned” happened.

In your example which involves “nearly”, let’s change it to “She had almost reached her destination when her husband called”. Again there are two events (1) “reached her destination” and (2) husband called. The event “husband called” had happened, but “reached destination” had not happened but close to happening.

In your other example “I was hardly hit by the car” is not logical because you need 2 events for “hardly” to mean “as soon as”. In G*o*o*g*l*e search，“hardly hit by the car” yielded “0” hit” (which means nobody says it that way).

Beside meaning “as soon as”, another meaning of “hardly” is “not”.

Example, I walked up to a pretty girl and asked, “Could I buy you dinner?” She retorted, “No. I hardly know you.” (Here, she simply meant she did not know me).

I hope this helps.