The third example… am i wrong or it is supposed to be a 下手 instead of a 上手?
Otherwise i guess (following the other example sentences), it would mean something like “Takeshi is the only one who is good, etc…”, right?
P.S. for more information, this was N3 Lesson 6: 13/24
Haven’t reached this grammar point yet myself, but wouldn’t 上手ではない make it a negative? Like “not good”. 下手ではない in that case would make it a double negative, i.e. not not good
Because there’s a しか, the negative verb becomes a “the only thing that (positive verb)”.
Or at least, that was how しか was taught here.
Like ここで僕しかいない should mean “I am the only one who IS here”, even tho the verb いない means “isn’t”.
Interesting… Didn’t know ない could be used in this way. After consulting some translation services, the sentence seems to indeed imply the opposite when translated
There’s been some talk about this grammar point recently.
だけしか - Grammar Discussion - Grammar Points - Bunpro Community
Help with だけしか grammar point - Japanese - Bunpro Community
The second sentence has been tweaked already (except the double ない which seems like a typo).
But I agree the third one is still weird. Following the logic of the other sentences, 上手 doesn’t work with the provided English translation. People seem to say that しか can be interpreted both ways, but since we have a follow up sentence here clearly saying that everyone else is good, then there is no doubt as to the meaning of the first sentence. So yeah, I also vote for 下手.
That example bugged me too! I researched the hell out of this grammar thinking that maybe there is some ambiguity but your version totally makes sense. I didn’t think of it.
Just as a followup, how do we tag or notify developers about this?
At the bottom of the lesson page, there’s an Actions section that contains a “Report” button. That’s probably the button you are looking for
Yeah it really seems to me that it is a mistake as well. That or it is saying that Takeshi is the only master and the rest of the team is merely skilled.
UPDATE: i wrote a report and a moderator confirmed my doubts, they are gonna change soon the example sentence.
Don’t be scared of using the report button, the staff is very very kind and they’ll surely reply to you
