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I have a sentence from page 39-108 of Lake and Ura's Learn to Read in Japanese.

食べてばかりいないで少し運動したほうがいいですよ

The book gives a somewhat inscrutable:

Eating only not being, it would be better to do a little exercise, for sure.

Google Translate gives the translation as:

You do not have to eat, you had better exercise a little

The second half of the sentence (運動したほうがいいですよ) is pretty straightforward; as I understand it from here, the first half of the sentence describes habitual eating. I don't know how it interacts with いないで.

Michael K
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1 Answers1

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～て + ばかりいる A verb in ～て form or a noun followed by ばかり means to do only that action or thing, or continuously do it, or to always (verb). This phrase is often used to disapprove of something.

勉強してばかりいる To do nothing but study.
走ってばかりいる To do nothing but run.

ないで means please do not (verb).

To combine both meanings:

勉強してばかりいる + ないで => 食べてばかりいないで

Which means, "please don't always just eat" or "please don't eat constantly."

For the record, ばかり could also be written ばっかり which means the same thing (but with more emphasis), and if it follows a verb in past tense, then it means that you have just finished doing that action.

食べたばかり・食べたばっかり = I just ate. (I just got done eating)

maogenc
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rgolden
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  • Also, I guess they just used the verb いる instead of する in the いないで part, which really doesn't change the meaning that much. It's still the same grammar. – rgolden Apr 10 '17 at 18:27
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    I thought the 〜しないで as a polite request not to do something only applied in the end of a sentence, implying 〜しないで**ください** and the ないで here would be more like "without doing (something)" – siikamiika Apr 10 '17 at 18:33
  • Yeah, I think that is correct. It might have been better to say that. But, in both cases you're just adding the particle で, I believe, to ない and then connecting it with something else. In this case it's just another sentence instead of ください。 But, I guess it does have slightly different implications. – rgolden Apr 10 '17 at 18:37
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    食べてばかりする doesn't make sense. – user4092 Apr 10 '17 at 22:21
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    Yeah I guess you're right. I was just using it as an example but it should be replaced with いる it seems. – rgolden Apr 10 '17 at 22:24
  • Although, if you nominalized the verb as in 食べることばかりする that may be ok I think. – rgolden Apr 10 '17 at 22:27
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    No, that would be wordy/awkward. –  Apr 11 '17 at 14:37
  • There is a commonly used phrase "ダイエット中に食べる事ばかり考えてる" meaning "When I'm on a diet, all I think about is eating." which uses that exact structure. – rgolden Apr 11 '17 at 17:14
  • @rgolden 「V+ことばかり考えてる」「V+ことばかりだ」などはよく使われると思いますが、「V+ことばかりする」は今回の意味で使うには回りくどいのか、普通は「V+てばかりいる」の方が好まれると思います。「～ことばかりする」の形は、「バカなことばかりする」「ひどいことばかりする」などのように、形容詞などを伴うことが多いと思います。「V+ことばかりする」の形は、「人の嫌がることばかりする」「誤解されることばかりする」のように、違う意味で使う事の方が多い気がします。 – Chocolate Apr 11 '17 at 22:36
  • Right, I was just using する for simplicity sake since the point of the question was grammar. The specific instance I used it in my answer, I acknowledged, would have been more natural in practice, with a different word. – rgolden Apr 11 '17 at 23:09
  • Yeah, I said it was a mistake. – rgolden Apr 11 '17 at 23:21
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    解答の４行目の`So, 食べてばかりしないで means...` は、「食べてばかり**い**ないで」の、単なるタイポではなかったのでしょうか・・・？ 勉強**して(い)る** ＋ばかり→勉強ばかり**して(い)る** or 勉強**して**ばかり**いる** 、 食べて**いる** ＋ばかり→食べてばかり**いる** (食べてばかり**す**る is ungrammatical)、 食べて**いない**で + ばかり→食べてばかり**いない**で (食べてばかり**し**ないで is ungrammatical) – Chocolate Apr 11 '17 at 23:44
  • That's what I said. In that instance of ばかり, する is incorrect. It should be いる. See my third comment. – rgolden Apr 11 '17 at 23:50
  • If you know that it was a mistake, then why don't you edit your post and correct the mistake? – Chocolate Apr 11 '17 at 23:51
  • Because that wasn't even the point of the question, and so, not that important. The person who asked the question had that part right to begin with. People can just read these comments. Or you can edit it if you want. – rgolden Apr 11 '17 at 23:53