3日前に会ったばかりだ
I saw him just three days ago (given translation)
ばかり is one of those particles that confuses me. Doesn't 会ったばかりだ mean "I just met him"? i.e. there has not been enough time for anything else to happen since I met him. So how can this work with 3日前に?
If I had to put ばかり anywhere in this sentence (and that is the point of the exercise) I would have written 3日前ばかりに会った. Would that be wrong? Does it have a different nuance?
The accepted answer to the link in the comments or this should answer your first question.
As for 3日前ばかりに会った, I’m afraid it is totally wrong. 3日前 already refers to a specific point of time and there is little ばかり can do with it. It might still play some role with 3日, which is a duration, but 3日ばかり前に会った doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. It basically means the same as 3日ほど前に会った as ばかり in this position means “approximately,” not “just.”
This might help you understand why ばかり in the sense of “just” doesn’t work the way you think it does.
ばかり on it’s own has many meanings that are not necessarily related to time. たばかり is a sentence pattern which indicates that the incident happened relatively recently.
たところ means that happened strictly “just now”. たばかり does not have an absolute time limit.
