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In English, "barely"/"hardly" can be used both with a connection to time
("just finished"):

> I had barely finished eating when he arrived. (食べたばかり...)

or to express the idea that a goal was reached at great effort, sometimes
against expectations:

> We barely made it alive.
>
> There was so much wind, I could barely move forward.
>
> I can hardly explain it myself.

The former (time-related) can generally be translated well with words like
ばかり/ばっかり. There are also a few expressions such as ギリギリ or やっとこ, that can
express both shortness of time and "difficulty", but building them in the
above sentences would be slightly unnatural.

Beside these, is there a more idiomatic way to unambiguously translate that
"can do with difficulty"/"nearly couldn't do it, but still managed" adverbial
meaning in sentences like the ones above?
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grammar
Translating "barely", "hardly" etc
First, for your lunch example, I'd definitely use "かないかのうち" rather than "ばかり"

Then, for idiomatic ways with adverbs、what about "ほぼ〜ない" or "ほとんど〜ない"？

> ほとんど聞き取れないような声 (a barely audible voice)

You may try "辛辛" or "辛くも", but I never used (nor heard) them.

> 辛くも勝利する (win by a hair)

Or なんとか

> 何とか締め切りに間に合った (we barely met the deadline)

According to edict, 碌々 and まず, both followed by a negative construction, seem
to work too, but ALC doesn't know anything about that.
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I think かろうじて fits for most of these. If you want a more "dangerous" sense,
危うく might work. For "I can hardly explain it myself", maybe something like
「自分だって説明がほとんど出来ないんだよ。」 (Edit) It just occurred to me, For the time sense ones,
you can also use とたん: 「食べ終えたとたん、彼が着いてきた。」 "Just as I finished eating, . . .".
やいなや also has the "as soon as" meaning, but I think it has a negative
connotation. 「部屋の中に踏むや否や、けんかが始まった。」 "The minute I stepped into the room, the
argument was on."
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