# "only" - alleen, maar, alleen maar,



## schluckauf

hello

I have just begun to learn Dutch and was wondering if somebody could help me out in this. How do you translate "only" into Dutch? I know that it can be alleen, maar, alleen maar but I don't know if they are interchangeable? I've been googling and found the following 3 examples:


"Alleen voor vrouwen" is een nieuwe trend in Japan

Waar ik fitness is het wel alleen maar voor vrouwen, maar is er wel een mannelijke instructeur

Wie helpt mij, kost maar 1 minuut 

In English you would just say "only" in the 3 cases. 
thanks for your help!    schluckauf


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## Stijn

You use "alleen voor" when you want to say "only for", "restricted to". You can add the word "maar" for extra emphasis.

When "only" means "as little as", you must use "maar" or "slechts".


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## Joannes

I agree with Stijn.

Maybe the other meaning of *alleen*, viz. 'alone', can help to remind you of the 'exclusively' sense. Another word you could use for this kind of 'only' is *enkel*. I think *enkel maar* is possible as an equivalent of *alleen maar* too.


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## Lopes

Joannes said:


> I think *enkel maar* is possible as an equivalent of *alleen maar* too.



*Enkel maar* sounds double to me, I'm not sure why. Maybe because *alleen maar* is more colloquial while *enkel *is more formal ("schrijftaal"), which would make a mixture of the to sound strange?


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## Joannes

Lopes said:


> *Enkel maar* sounds double to me, I'm not sure why. Maybe because *alleen maar* is more colloquial while *enkel *is more formal ("schrijftaal"), which would make a mixture of the to sound strange?


Yes, I know, I have a strange feeling with *enkel maar* too, which is in fact what I wrote first. But then I googled the string and I thought that results like..
* economie - 'Elektriciteitsprijzen kunnen enkel maar stijgen' - Gva.be
* HLN Australian Open - Roddick kan enkel maar aanklampen tegen Federer
* Ernest Mandel (1957): "Is het marxisme enkel maar een onderzoeksmethode?"

..didn't sound so bad after all. And even newspapers seem to use the construction (although HLN and GvA are perhaps no great authorities as far as language is concerned..). That's why I edited my post.

Well, in any case, Google also confirms that *alleen maar* is way more common than enkel maar (20 800 000 vs 97 400), although it's still Google of course so you have to consider things like:
* Sportwereld - Desein verliest in enkel maar wint in dubbel.
_* Alleen maar niet eenzaam__, _RJ Williams
(where *maar* means 'but')

*Edit* (again)
Actually, now that I think about it, in the first example, which is the one that I would be most likely to write as well, the *maar* part can have a double sense: it can be part of *enkel maar*, but it could also be the *maar* to convey continuation: *de prijzen blijven maar stijgen*.


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## ThomasK

I was going to ask about this too, but I think there is one useful hint missing: in front of a figure, we only use 'maar', not alleen. 

_Ik heb *maar/ slechts (*_*more formal*_*)  5 euro* op zak._ (*alleen 5 euro, sounds awkward to me)

Correct?


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## Ktke

I actually do say: 'Ik heb alleen/enkel 20 euro'. 

I say it when I have no smaller bills then the bill of twenty euro's. So it's possible that I have two bills of twenty euro at that time. It means that I have no bill of ten or five euro.
It usually doesn't mean I have just (no more then) 20 euro, then I would indeed say: 'Ik heb maar 20 euro bij'. 

Does this make sense?


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## ThomasK

I thtink we agree. I had not considered the first option, but in that case the 'only' refers to "20 euros" as a whole, not to the "20" as such, I think.


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## Joannes

ThomasK said:


> I thtink we agree. I had not considered the first option, but in that case the 'only' refers to "20 euros" as a whole, not to the "20" as such, I think.


Exactly. You can see this in things like: *ik heb alleen (maar) nen blauwe*, where you lose the figure and the plural. It means 'ik heb niets kleiners' rather than 'ik heb te weinig om te kunnen betalen' (because that one would require *maar*).


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