Je n'ai acheté qu'un vélo.

Question

Since "que" is in front of "un", it means "I bought only one bike" (not two).  If I want to say "I bought only a bike." (meaning I bought a bike and nothing else), can you say "Je n'ai acheté un que vélo?

Cécile Janty-Davies · Accepted Answer

Hi Hillary, 
This has been asked many times. 
Please take a look at my answer to another student. What you suggest is wrong I am afraid.
https://french.kwiziq.com/questions/view/what-is-the-meaning-of-aurelie-n-est-qu-allee-au-marche-1

Jim Jones · Answer

Hi Hillary,To write "Je n'ai acheté qu'un vélo" means to me that only a single bike was bought where "un" equates to "a" in English.In other words, the purchase was a bike only, not anything else.Hope this helps.Jim

Maarten Kamp · Answer

The link from Cécile is what I was trying to find (unsuccessfully). Just to add for clarity - you also cannot put 'que' between an article and its noun; to restrict the noun, 'que' comes directly before the 'article-noun' not between them.

Michael White · Answer

OK. I understand why I only bought one bicycle is right, indeed I got the answer "right" on the quiz, but the addition of ... and nothing else ... doesn't make sense. Yes, only one bicycle was purchased, but the que only seems to point to the one bicycle. How does the sentence rule out that nothing else was purchased?

Michael White · Answer

OK. I understand why I only bought one bicycle is right, indeed I got the answer "right" on the quiz, but the addition of ... and nothing else ... doesn't make sense. Yes, only one bicycle was purchased, but the que only seems to point to the one bicycle. How does the sentence rule out that nothing else was purchased?