How would you use しか and ありませんでした together?
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particle-しか
How would you use しか and ありませんでした together?
しか is used along with negative verbs to express "only", in a negative way. In
English it could be translated as "nothing but". For example:

> 昨日行ったレストランには、ラーメン **しかありませんでした** 。 (There was nothing but ramen at the
> restaurant we went yesterday).

In many cases, this negative pattern has the nuance that there should be more
things beyond that "only" thing expressed with しか. When the speaker says しか,
she or he expected to be other things ore more things. In the example above,
the speaker would expect that there were available more types of dishes
besides ramen, but there was only ramen and not anything else. This feeling of
being less than expected is particularly true when using しか with amounts or
quantities, such as in:

> 前に住んでいた村は家が4 **軒しかありませんでした** 。(There were nothing but 4 houses in the
> village I used to live).

Again, a village with barely 4 houses is way smaller than expected of a
village of a regular size, hence the use of しか.

Note that the literal, objective meaning of しか with negative verbs is the same
than that of だけ with positive verbs. However だけ does not carry that nuance of
"less or fewer" than expected.

> 昨日行ったレストランには、ラーメン **だけありました** 。 (There was only ramen at the restaurant we
> went yesterday).
>
> 前に住んでいた村は家が4 **軒だけありました** 。 (There were only 4 houses in the village I used
> to live).
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answer
If you're just looking for a usage example:

>
> 茄子【なすび】[し]{●}[か]{●}[あ]{●}[り]{●}[ま]{●}[せ]{●}[ん]{●}[で]{●}[し]{●}[た]{●}ので、[ババガヌーシュ](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%83%90%E3%82%AC%E3%83%8C%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5)を作【つく】ることにしました。  
>  Since I **didn't have anything but** eggplant, I decided to make [baba
> ghanoush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_ghanoush).

  * The ～しか followed by a negative verb means "don't `[VERB]` (any) but/except for ～".

  * The ありませんでした just means "there wasn't (any)", or "(someone) didn't have (any)", depending on context.

Another example using しか:

> リンゴ[し]{●}[か]{●}食【た】べませんから便秘【べんぴ】になりました。  
>  Since [he] doesn't eat **anything but** apples, [he] got constipated.
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answer