I can hardly wait.

This always gave me a real hard time. In English it seems so simple to say for example, I can't wait to see you or, I can hardly wait to see you.. I'd heard people saying, mal posso esperar para... But this didn't make much sense. I was understanding this as, bad can wait for...

The verb ESPERAR must be used here, right? I was always trying to say this literally like this, Eu não posso esperar para... or, Eu não consigo esperar... or even, Eu dificilmente posso esperar. Technically, these are not incorrect. But they're not the ways a Brazilian would say it.

Here's how a brazilian says this:

Let's do the most common situations. There are just three. Start your phrase with any of these combinations:
Mal posso esperar (para)...
Não vejo a hora (para ou de) ...
Estou contando os dias (para)...

Let's do it:

using mal posso esperar

This actually translates literally as: badly ablt to wait. Makes perfect sense!

using não vejo a hora

I can't see the hour!

*You can also use PARA instead of DE: Não vejo a hora para ver você. But, a Brazilian will always use de in this example.

using contando os dias

I'm counting the days. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

* Note that in these examples using ver você, you could have just as well said, te ver. So for example, Não vejo a hora de ver você becomes Não vejo a hora de te ver. The use of the TE in place of PARA VOCÊ is very, very common especially in conversation. See my post about using TE here.