nihongo wo benkyou shitai

Honestly, its the little things that give me hassle. Take the word 'only' for example. What possibly could be difficult about such a simple word? Well, strange things happen when you enter the nihongo-zone...

In my quest for knowledge, I have come across 4 common translations for 'only'. While this is three more than I want to remember, each seems to have a pretty specific use so it's not so bad.

First off is だけ. If you can easily replace 'only' with 'just' or 'simply', then だけ is a good bet. Sentences such as the following would suit だけ.

"I was only looking"
"She was only trying to be funny"

However, you do have to be a bit careful. だけ should only be used when the 'feeling' of the sentence is neutral or positive. If the feeling is negative, you need to use しか. しか is like saying 'nothing but' or 'no more than' and implies an overall negative connotation. Consider these sentences:

"There were only 3 cans of beer in the fridge."
"We couldn't get a discount because only 3 people turned up."

In these examples there is a general air of it not being a good situation. It's important to point out that しか is used with the verb in negative form. So if you see しか, it should be followed by a verb ending in either ません or ない. This doesn't make the verb negative, but simply strengthens the negative aspects on the sentence.

The third equivalent you'll come across is のみ.　It is essentially the more formal, version of だけ used frequently in documents and official web sites etc. This is more one to remember than actively use.

And that brings us to ばかり. We have to be a bit careful with this one as it has several uses, not just to do with 'only'. In a nutshell, ばかり emphasizes something in a positive light and can loosely be translated as 'nothing but'. Now, we did say that しか also could be 'nothing but', however that was in a negative light. Consider:

"There is nothing but rubbish here" - しか
"There is nothing but good material here" - ばかり

See?

Let's test drive this...

English: I only watch TV in the evening.
Jenglish: [evening][in][TV][only][watch]
日本語： 晩にテレビだけ見ます。

Notice how the particle を was left out? を, が and は are usually omitted after だけ. Also, だけ is not used with も.

English: There are only 3 bottles of beer in the fridge
Jenglish: [fridge][in][beer][3 + counter][only][are + negative]
日本語： 冷蔵庫にビールを３本がしかない。

See the negative form of ある at the end of the sentence?

English: Japanese is the only language I study.
Jenglish: [Japanese][language][only][study]
日本語： 日本語は言葉ばかり勉強しています。

Actually, I'm not happy about that last one. Can someone explain ばかり more accurately? Anyways, to recap:

だけ --> objectively describes what is there
しか --> emphasizes scarcity in negative way
ばかり --> indicates that whatever was mentioned is the only example of it's kind.

またね。