I'm working on a project for my Japanese class. I'm writing about Sweden's right of public access (allemansrätten) (yes, I had to look up a lot of vocabulary) and trying to say "the constitution only says..." or "all the constitution says is that, notwithstanding the protection of property, everyone will have the right of public access". My attempt was "けんぽうで、みなさんはざいさんけんにかかわらずしぜんきょうじゅけんがあるだけと言う". The grader corrected this to "けんぽうで、みなさんはざいさんけんにかかわらずしぜんきょうじゅけんがあるからと言う", but that didn't seem right to me so I talked to 先生. His correction was "けんぽうで、みなさんはざいさんけんにかかわらずしぜんきょうじゅけんがあるだけだと言う", but that seems to me like "only" is part of the quote, so I just wanted to check.
asked Nov 20 '20 at 0:41
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A bit more context might be useful. Do you mind providing the actual sentence you were composing? – A.Ellett Nov 20 '20 at 0:59
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There are other ways of saying "only" in Japanese. ただ and ばかり come to mind. Are you familiar with these? You might offer up attempts with these too and see what kind of feedback you receive here. – A.Ellett Nov 20 '20 at 1:02
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We've only learned だけ and しか〜ない in class, but we've only learned to use them with numbers; my attempts were attempts to apply the other examples I've seen, both prior to and in the process of finding an answer to this question. I'll edit the question to give more context. – themathandlanguagetutor Nov 20 '20 at 1:17
I would use 「～とだけ」 or 「～としか...ない」.
「～～とだけ[言]{い}っている・[書]{か}いてある」「～～としか言っていない・書いていない」
[憲法]{けんぽう}には、～～とだけ書いてある。
憲法には、～～としか書いていない。
憲法は、～～としか言っていない。
His correction was "けんぽうで、みなさんはざいさんけんにかかわらずしぜんきょうじゅけんがあるだけだと言う", but that seems to me like "only" is part of the quote
I agree with you. 「～があるだけだと言う」 would mean "It says that you only have ~~."
