Loek van Kooten, MA砂だけだ。砂しかない。砂ばかりだ。砂のみだ。
Four Japanese sentences. Same English translation: "It's just sand. " Four completely different feelings. A few days ago we broke down だけ and しか. The comments came in fast, all pointing at the same gap: "What about ばかり? What about のみ? " Steven from japan-gids. nl (the best travel agent you can wish for) made us promise a sequel. So here it is. The article walks through both new particles and shows you when each one does NOT work.
ばかり has three different personalities and one that cannot be translated literally into English. のみ refuses to attach to half the things you would expect. There is a trap with negative verbs that breaks every textbook example we have ever seen. There is also a single idiom that even advanced learners get wrong because it does not appear on most JLPT lists. Real game dialogue throughout, from Battlefield, Graveyard Keeper, Dustborn, Arma 3, Dawn of War, Shadow Tactics, and Punch Club 2.
Plus a 10-question quiz at the bottom that puts all four particles head to head. https://learn.japanology.nl/article/bakari-nomi Which "only" do you reach for without thinking, and which one still trips you? We start with the easy stuff on learn.japanology.nl. 32,500+ words, nearly 2,000 kanji, real game dialogue, four particles for one English word. #Japanese #LearnJapanese #JLPT #Grammar #JapaneseGrammar #Japanology #ばかり #のみ #GameLocalization #日本語
