English translation:
To emphasize ‘~only’
nothing but
Structure:
Noun + だけしか + ない
Explanation:
Compound particle made of “だけ” and “しか”.
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I’ve got a quick question about one of the example sentences.
私には従兄弟が一人だけしかいません。
I only have one cousin.
What is the に doing here beside 私?
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This is alternative construction, you can use either 私には従兄弟が一人だけしかいません and 私は従兄弟が一人だけしかいません.
Both mean the same thing.
It is exactly the same as in:
東京には外国人がたくさんいます。
東京は外国人がたくさんいます。
to make things easier by analogy, you can think of yourself as location of cousin.
Literally: I have only one cousin with me.
I hope it helps,
Cheers!
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Ah, it makes sense. Thank you!
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These example sentences under the explanation confused me:
- 土曜日だけしか忙しくないから、出来たら土曜日がいい。
Only Saturdays aren’t busy, so if possible Saturday is preferable.
- この中ではタケシだけしか上手ではない。他はみんな結構うまい。
In this group, Takeshi is the only one that isn’t good. Everyone else is considerably skilled.
- 何でこのコップだけしか500円ではないの？
Why is this cup the only one that isn’t 500yen?
Am i just confused? Shouldn’t the translation be that only Saturdays are busy, and Takeshi is the only one who is good, and only this cup is 500 yen?
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For whatever it is worth, I agree. (Silver lining for me is that confusion over these sentences drove me to discover the grammar discussion threads.)
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I was just about to create an issue about that! I agree, I’m thoroughly confused by the examples. To me, the example sentences you listed are polar opposites of the other ones on that page.
Not only that, but deepl.com and Google translate seem to be confused about the meaning, as well (and they work usually quite well, even for more complex phrases, especially deepl.com). Both translate “この中ではタケシだけしか上手ではない” to “Only Takeshi is good at this”.
It’s strange.
Edit: I’ve talked to some Japanese folks, and they were initially also assuming it was about something “only Takeshi is good at”. But when I showed them the explanation on BunPro, they kind of agreed that it can be interpreted the other way. So at the very least, there seems to be some ambiguity about the meaning, maybe depending on context? Nevertheless, the given example sentences seem to have opposite meanings:
野菜だけしか食べれません
→ だけしか + negative = positive, eating only vegetables
タケシだけしか上手ではない
→ だけしか + negative = negative!, Takeshi is the only one NOT good at something
I think that warrants some explanation on the grammar point.
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I immediately came here to see if someone had asked about this, and your reply took the words out of my mouth, as I had also used other translators out there to double check and that got me utterly confused.
It’s a shame there has been no answer to this riddle so far…
If 「土曜日だけしか忙しくない」 means “only Saturdays aren’t busy”, how would you say “only Saturdays are busy” with the しか～ない structure?
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I came to this thread wondering the same thing as everyone else in this thread re: negative vs positive interpretations. I would have thought the sentences would be “only Takeshi is good at” or “only Saturdays are busy” or “the only one that is 500yen.”
Interesting! So it can be ambiguous? I agree, if these sentences’ translations are correct, I’d like an explanation about ambiguity on the grammar point too.
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I also came to this discussion thread hoping to find some insight into how the example sentences seem to showcase contradictory meanings. Did anyone here ever come to a conclusion about how to pick up on that nuance? Is it just one of those things that requires greater context to gauge the meaning?
The example sentence that was being discussed above has been changed to use 下手 instead of 上手, so the conclusion appears to be that that particular contradiction was a mistake in the example sentence.
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Could you please remove the “at the beginning/end” from the hint “Could you add something to the beginning?” / “Could you add something to the end?” when you only submit だけ or しか? Every time this comes up I try one of those two first (because I assume it’s just that), and then the hint basically gives away the whole thing without me having to think whether it was だけしか or しかだけ… something I’m not confident I would’ve actually remembered. For me this is almost the same as if you would write “Did you mean だけしか?” as the hint.
(After a series of this happening probably 6 times or so, and having completely forgotten that だけしか even exists, this happened again just now… and Bunpro would’ve marked it as “mastered” if I hadn’t deliberately failed it after getting that same super-obvious hint. 
)
I am also quite confused by the example sentences. Let’s look at two of the examples given.
First sentence: 彼は野菜だけしか食べられません。 Its meaning is identical to 彼は野菜しか食べられません。 “He can only eat vegetables.”
Second sentence: 何でこのコップだけしか５００円ではないの？ Its meaning is identical to 何でこのコップだけ５００円ではないの？ “Why only this cup is not 500 yen?”
In essence, in the first sentence we delete the だけ to obtain the equivalent meaning, but in the second sentence we delete the しか.
How can we understand what is the case?
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Now I see it as “not” as well. Quite strange, not sure if it’s some sort of caching issue or something else is going on.
Normally だけしか means しか with extra emphasis.
I would understand this sentence as “All other cups do not cost 500 yen. This cup is the only one that costs 500. Why is that?”
There’s also a question of what it means to “cost 500 / not cost 500”. Exactly 500? 500 or less, so it’s affordable if you only have 500? 500 or more, so you’ll get at least 500 by selling it? Maybe this is where double negative gets flipped on its head.
Thank you. Indeed, that was also my understanding; the だけ is there just for extra emphasis and the meaning of the sentence should not change meaning if you just deleted だけ from だけしか. My initial understanding was exactly as yours, i.e., “only this cup costs 500 yen, why is that?”
The same inconsistency appears in another one of those example sentences.
Here, the English translation says that Takeshi is the only one that is not good. But if we write the first sentence ignoring the emphatic だけ, the sentence is “この中ではタケシしか上手じゃない,” which I would interpret as “Among these people, only Takeshi is good/skilled.”