# רק



## sawyeric1

What are the rules for where to place רק? I came across this sentence in my studies:

מצידי אני רוצה רק שמש וים - כל השנה​As far as I’m concerned I only want sunshine and [the] beach (nonliteral) - all year [long]

And I was wondering why she didn't say רק רוצה because I think that's how I've usually seen it before. 

Thanks


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## slus

It's a slightly different meaning, just like in English:
מצידי אני רוצה רק שמש וים - כל השנה means "for all I care, I want ONLY sun and sea - all year round"
מצידי אני רק רוצה שמש וים - כל השנה means ""for all I care, I ONLY want sun and sea - all year round"


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## sawyeric1

You only live once
אתה חי רק פעם אחת

He's only been here six months
הוא היה כאן רק שישה חודשים

It seems like from sentences like these that Hebrew is more logical to put רק before the thing it actually affects, whereas English usually just sticks to customary word order.


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## shalom00

Strictly speaking, in order to avoid ambiguity, you should place "only" in English as in Hebrew:

You live only once.
He's been here only six months.


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## sawyeric1

Most people don't talk like that though


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## shalom00

So in these examples, English is the illogical language, not Hebrew.


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## sawyeric1

That's what I said


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## Drink

sawyeric1 said:


> Most people don't talk like that though



I don't agree. I think "You live only once" and "He's been here only six months" are probably only slightly less common than "You only live once" and "He's only been here six months".


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## sawyeric1

"You live only once": 156,000 results on Google

"You only live once": 10,600,000 results on Google (almost 68 times more common)

"He's been here only ...": 31,100 results on Google

"He's only been here ...": 435,000 results on Google (almost 14 times more common)


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## Drink

sawyeric1 said:


> "You live only once": 156,000 results on Google
> 
> "You only live once": 10,600,000 results on Google (almost 68 times more common)
> 
> "He's been here only ...": 31,100 results on Google
> 
> "He's only been here ...": 435,000 results on Google (almost 14 times more common)



Google hit counts don't mean anything. Sometimes it says "10,600,000" and then you flip through ten pages and there are no more results.

EDIT:
Since "you only live once" is a popular set phrase, I think the second example is a better test. See this graph on Google Ngrams, which is much more accurate than the hit counts.

EDIT2:
See also this simpler Ngram.


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## sawyeric1

Yes, they certainly do: The Number of Google Results Found: What It Really Means - SEO Chat


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## Drink

sawyeric1 said:


> Yes, they certainly do: The Number of Google Results Found: What It Really Means - SEO Chat



Google estimates the results, they don't actually count them, and the estimates are often way off. Anyway, see my updated answer above.


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## sawyeric1

If you read the article by SEO, it says "those results still do exist". 

Books, especially the newest of which are 9 years old, are _not _good sources for how people speak. So if you take out all the older books, that's why "only been here" is only three times more common than "been here only". But even that is more than a slight difference: 

updated ngram graph

Whether it's a set phrase or not, you still said the alternative was only slightly less common, which is incorrect.


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## Drink

sawyeric1 said:


> If you read the article by SEO, it says "those results still do exist".



Do you expect Google to admit that the numbers aren't real? And even if they are real numbers, there is no way to take into account that there could be millions of copies of a particular web page out there that are all counted separately, while another page is counted only once.



sawyeric1 said:


> Books, especially the newest of which are 9 years old, are _not _good sources for how people speak. So if you take out all the older books, that's why "only been here" is only three times more common than "been here only". But even that is more than a slight difference:
> 
> updated ngram graph



Don't look at the older data if you don't want to, the newer data is not that much different. Your choice of tests is a little odd, but see the link in my second edit above (feel free to adjust the date ranges, but they don't have data after 2008). And even with your oddly worded test, it is only three times less common.



sawyeric1 said:


> Whether it's a set phrase or not, you still said the alternative was only slightly less common, which is incorrect.



I meant that phrasing in general, not that specific phrase itself.


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## sawyeric1

The new data is _very _different from the old data. 

It's clearly better to not have "once" in the phrasings, because there are so many different instances of time that can be referred to. The link I gave is a far better approximation of usage because of that. 

In any case, books are usually a lot more formal than webpages, so ngrams are a lot less reliable about the tendencies of spoken language anyway.


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## Drink

sawyeric1 said:


> The new data is _very _different from the old data.
> 
> It's clearly better to not have "once" in the phrasings, because there are so many different instances of time that can be referred to. The link I gave is a far better approximation of usage because of that.
> 
> In any case, books are usually a lot more formal than webpages, so ngrams are a lot less reliable about the tendencies of spoken language anyway.



Ok so I just searched through the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English and found 210 instances of the word only. I went through each of these and found the following:
- 33 uses of the type "he *only* wanted one thing"
- 4 uses of the type "he wanted *only* one thing"
- 2 uses of the type "he wanted one thing *only*"
- 171 cases that either were not applicable or did not contain enough context on the line

So this is a rather small data sample, but it's enough to say that I was wrong to say it's "slightly less common", but I still think you're wrong that "most people don't talk like that". I think it depends more on context than it does on the person. Even if you only use this wording one out of ten times, you still use it a lot.


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## sawyeric1

Whatever


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## Ali Smith

Today a heard someone giving someone else unsolicited advice. He replied, "תודה, אני מסתדר." (Thank you, I'm getting along.)
The first guy said, "אני רק רוצה לעזור."
The second shouted, "אני לא צריך את העזרה שלך!"

It's clear the first guy meant that he wanted to do nothing but help. (In Arabic it would be لا أريد إلا مساعدتك.)
So, why didn't he say אני רוצה רק לעזור?


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## Drink

It's like "I'm just trying to help." or "I'm only trying to help."


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## Ali Smith

Yes, so why didn’t he put רק _after_ רוצה?


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## Drink

Look at where the word "just" and "only" is in the English sentence...

Keep in mind though, that comparing Hebrew to other languages is not the way to learn the language. But if you can't understand why it has a different order than in Arabic, then perhaps it would be easier to understand why it has the same order as in English.


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## Ali Smith

Got it. But what's the difference in meaning between the following?

אני רק רוצה לעזור
אני רוצה רק לעזור


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## slus

אני רק רוצה לעזור = I just want to help
אני רוצה רק לעזור = All I want to do is help


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## Ali Smith

So, if someone asked you why you were hanging out with French-speaking people would you reply with

רק רציתי ללמוד צרפתית

or

רציתי רק ללמוד צרפתית

?


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## Drink

The first one sounds more natural to me.


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