23409
The girl who just spoke is clearly being a pain in the ass, and after she
leaves, one of the boys says this :

> 1 - オレ憎たらしさには 自信があったが あいつ **だけは** ぜったい勝てん。
>
> I was sure I was unpleasant, but it's nothing compared to her.

I'm used to see 勝てる used with に, which here is replaced by だけ which confuses
me a bit.

It doesn't seem to mean "only her", or maybe in the sense "I'm still more
unpleasant than anyone, except her"?

The thing is the contrastive は combined with に seems to have this meaning
already, "I can't win against him VS I can't win against him (though I would
win against others)"

in this question : [sometimes だけ gets mildly
confusing..](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1405/sometimes-%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91-gets-
mildly-confusing) someone suggests that in example 2, だけ is juste used to
stress は.

> 2 - それ **だけは** 、食べないでください。 "Please don't eat that. (Eat anything else.)"

* * *

**Long story short, what would be the difference in example 1 if だけは was
replaced by the following (my guesses on the right)**

に - Just a simple relation : I'm nothing compared to her.

は - Same as には but with a casual drop of the に as in 僕（に）は自信がある

には - Contrast : I'm nothing compared to her (though compared to ohers...)

だけ - Stressed version of に with a casual drop of に : I'm nothing compared to
her (and her only, don't know about the others)

だけは - Stressed version of には with a casual drop of に : I'm nothing compared to
her (and her only, though compared to others...)

だけに - Plain version of だけ

だけには - Plain version of だけは

All the versions without は dont feel right to me in a negative sentence.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-23T12:34:16.763
23408
2015-03-23T14:06:34.257
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
4822
question
particles
Some questions about だけ and clarifications about its nuances
> 「オレ[憎]{にく}たらしさには [自身]{じしん}があった **が** あいつだけはぜったい[勝]{か}てん。」

First off, this sentence is highly colloquial and the speaker omits a couple
of particles. That may be causing part of your confusion. The conjunction 「が」
in the middle is actually a key word here that would help one understand the
last half of the sentence.

"I had confidence in my own 憎たらしさ, **_but_** ~~~~~~~~."

「あいつ」 must be worse than the speaker in the degree of 憎たらしさ, n'est-ce pas?
Otherwise, 「が」 would not have been used.

In this context (and **not** elsewhere),

> 「あいつ **だけは** 」＝「あいつ **だけには** 」＝「あいつ **にだけは** 」

「に」 is clearly being omitted as we say 「～～ **に** 勝つ/勝たない/勝てない」

> "I was confident in my own wickedness, but there is no way I could beat her
> in that department."

Finally, here is what I would think if you replaced 「だけは」 with the following
words.

「に」: Not natural. Needs 「は」 or 「だけ」 as well.

「は」: Possible.

「には」: Very natural.

「だけ」: Possible if not very natural.

「だけは」: Pretty natural.

「だけに」：Possible and slightly more natural than 「だけ」.

「だけには」: Excellent choice.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-23T13:32:09.460
23409
2015-03-23T13:32:09.460
23408
answer