Lesson 27: Bakari meanings:: crazy patchwork or logical pattern?

Japanese ばかり (bakari) is the center of a mass of "grammar points". But actually, it all makes simple sense. We cover bakari as "just happened", as "lots of", "keeps doing", "only does", the conjunctions "bakari ka" and "bakari ni" and see how rather than a mess of random "grammar points" with arbitrary "connection rules", the meanings and structure all form a logical whole centering around one basic meaning. ▼See More ▼

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[vinilzord]

I love how Dolly sensei always diss Eihongo textbooks in the beginning of the videos aahahahahah : )

[mouhou]

I might be a bit childish,
but I had to chuckle when you kept saying I just came.

[kbd]

ばかり is actually a 'contraction' (the right word to describe this escapes me) of はかり, the 連用形 of はかる. Once you can grasp this, it becomes very simple

[anangelsdiaries]

Funnily enough, yesterday I watch this video. About 5 minutes later, I decided to read raws of Blue Period. This structure is used first chapter, 2-3 times in the first like 10 pages.

[maheshnikam]

me before this channel kawai me after this channel 可愛い

[flaguser]

There's nothing but bread in the bakari!

[Garbaz]

9:50 This might be a misinterpretation, but I think it makes more sense to think of the first clause うたったばかりか posing a question, which immediately gets resolved by おどった. Of course this implies that the first statement was wrong, but I wouldn't ascribe any negative meaning directly to か here.

[silpheedTandy]

i enjoy watching your videos, Dolly, and i'm not even learning Japanese! (i'm (slowly) learning French). it fascinates me to casually be exposed to the different way that Japanese language interprets/sees the world. (the video on a more animist vs ego-centric perspective blew my mind! as did the video that helped me understand that a child goes through many hypotheses to even eventually understand what "ball" means). as someone whose only language is English, it is new for my brain to even be exposed to examples of how the Meaning Spectrum can be cut differently across language.

i'm wondering about what if Japanese learners *didn't* have your videos? how could we manage to come to the understanding of what words mean at their cognitive root (ie, vs a laundry list that dictionaries give) that you clarify in videos like this one? even though French is so closely related to English, i still am struggling to pick up where French is slightly different. i know the preposition à works slightly differently ("Ne utilise pas au micro-ondes" instead of "Ne utilise pas dans les micro-ondes"), but i'm still not developing an intuition.

is there a strategy to get to the understanding that you explain, by ourselves (ie without your videos)? i don't think i'm using my input strategically enough, because the understanding comes so slowly or so weakly.

[shu]

What would be the meaning of this?
[こんなことばかりしてらんない]
Something like "(I) can't keep doing this"?

[nickinlondon]

The Inu no Omawarisan song is very sweet, but why is there 'iru' after 'naite bakari'? I know that 'iru' after the '-te' form of a verb indicates the present continuous, so is it the case that 'bakari' can come between the '-te verb' and the 'iru'? I didn't know these could be split. If this is what is happening, are there any other words that can do this? Thank you for your videos!!

[Joby]

Does the time useage of ばかり relate to とたん? I have seen とたん in grammar exercises but not in practice, assuming it is used like -たばかり。There seem to be a lot of phrases in japanese for relative times especially close relative times like "just now, soon, momentarily". I know you don't like "list videos" but all those relative time phrases could make a good topic... 先, 間もなく, すぐ, やげて, 時期に, ちかぢか, 徐々 for example.

[OpuYT]

Thank you, I always wondered about the Bakari :D

[meisteryassine]

How would we say "do you think I'm gonna do that" using ばかり ? Please correct me if I'm wrong ->
そうするばかりか思う ? thank you for the lesson :)

[kunslipper]

Thank you so much. You are so cute. I mean when you sang kitten song.

[Someone-pjqe]

How would I say, "I'm not going to do nothing but cry"?

[aocchan]

As always, thank you for your videos. I have a question. In the lost kitten song, why is it 泣いてばかりいる? I mean, why does ばかり get added in the middle of the verb? I know 泣いている actually are two elements, 泣く and いる, but the answer is still not clear to me. Maybe it's because, when meaning "doing nothing but", ばかり gets added after the te-form?

[aaaab]

泣いてばかりいる子猫ちゃん = a kitten that keeps crying.
Can you explain that いる, please? Is it the same いる that follows the て form of a verb to express the present tense? If so, how does the fact that ばかり is a noun fit in the logical structure of the clause?

[NestorMandela]

I have particle related question with this sentence: 「勝手なことばかり言わないでくれ。」

1. Why is not 「 勝手なことばかりを言わないでくれ。」? I've been told that this is because ばかり is a particle but as you don't say nothing of sort in your video I think that's not the correct answer.
2. I'd translate it as "Selfish-thing-nothing but-don't tell-to me" so something along "Stop telling me nothing but selfish things". Is it correct?
3. Would it be correct to write it as「勝手なことばかりだ言わないでくれ。」Do I need to use を here?

PS: So sorry to waste your time with basic questions. I just want to understand everything to avoid carrying with me bad knowledge.

[Jecsen]

Hi, I was trying to find more sample sentences for BAKARI NI, and I found this sentence:


お金がないばかりに、今度の旅行には行けなかったのです。
I can’t travel this time because I have no money.


In this case, it doesn't mean 'Just because' isn't it? If I interpret it as 'Just because i have no money..' shouldn't the following clause be something like '..doesn't mean I can't travel this time' ?

[zamyrabyrd]

Poor crying kitten and little tot with the big ears! Hopefully the cat found its momma and the other found a playmate!
Towards the end you mention putting a comma after a conjunction at the end of a clause. This might be the subject of another lesson, or maybe you treated it already. I have absolutely no idea about Japanese punctuation. It also seems random and arbitrary to me at this stage. Thanks, again!