Page 312 - Basic Japanese

The teacher is the only one I didn’t tell.

Both shika + the negative (but with an affirmative

meaning in the English translation) and dake with either the
negative (with negative meaning in English) or the

affirmative are used to translate English ‘only’ after an
ordinary noun. After a number or quantity word, just shika +

the negative is used to mean ‘only.’ Dake means ‘just,

neither more nor less than’:

Jū-jikan kakarimashita.
It took ten hours.

Jū-jikan dake kakarimashita.
It took just ten hours. (Which seems neither
long nor short.)

Jū-jikan shika kakarimasen deshita.
It took only ten hours. (Which seems short.)

6.24. Approximate numbers

Two consecutive numbers can often be combined to mean

‘about 2 or 3, about 3 or 4’, etc. These are then added to a
single counter.

Ten’in ga ni san-nin Roku shichi-nen wa kakaru
imashita. deshō.