〜ばかり nothing but / only: Meaning & Examples

How 〜ばかり works

お菓子ばかり食べている is “He does nothing but eat sweets.” Attach it to a noun, or use 〜てばかりいる for a repeated action. The contrast with だけ is worth learning early: だけ counts (“only two”), while ばかり complains (“always this, never anything else”).

構文こうぶんConstruction

• Noun + ばかり

  マンガばかり読んでいる。 — He reads nothing but comics.

• Verb (て-form) + ばかりいる — a repeated action

  弟は寝てばかりいる。 — My brother does nothing but sleep.

• Quantity + ばかり = “about” (no criticism)

  一時間ばかり待ちました。 — I waited for about an hour.

• A different pattern: plain past + ばかり = “just did”

  今、着いたばかりです。 — I’ve only just arrived.

例文れいぶんIn a sentence

注意点ちゅういてんNuances

• 野菜ばかり食べている sounds like a complaint even though the diet is healthy — for a neutral “only”, use だけ.
• For repeated actions the て-form version is the standard one: 遊んでばかりいる, 文句を言ってばかりいる.
• After a number, ばかり loses its edge entirely and simply means “about”, doing the same job as ぐらい: 三日ばかり, 十人ばかり.
• Watch the form in front of it. 食べてばかり is “does nothing but eat”; 食べたばかり is “has just eaten”. One て, one た, two unrelated meanings.

練習れんしゅうYour Turn

Tip

Grumble about three people — or about yourself — doing one thing to excess, using 〜ばかり and 〜てばかりいる. Then use ばかり with a number to say roughly how long something took.

〜ばかり (nothing but / only) in real sentences

Each one is quoted from a published Japanese text in this library and links to the story it came from. Some use older spellings, or break off where the sentence carried on. They are transcribed exactly as their authors wrote them.

Appears in 5 of 367 texts in our library.