Well, both してばかりいる or してばかりです are correct. Since both still sound weird to you, you probably just need some more exposure to that construction I would say.
But I do agree that it did seem kind of unnatural to me too since I only learned about ばかりしている at first.
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This feels like a weird construct to me only because I don’t think I’ve seen anything else that splits up て and いる like that. I know it’s a thing, but it feels like an oddity.
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I think I’m gonna ask my japanese teacher to explain ばかり to me again from the beginning 
I’m not feeling so confident anymore.
AFAIK, a bunch of focus / restriction particles can, in theory, split て and a following auxiliary verb: は, も, さえ, すら, でも, だけ, ばかり, … or even combinations thereof, though, of course, the more complex you make it, the less likely you’ll hear it. But ばかり is most frequent, maybe?
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There’s an example sentence for 頂き that goes:
頂きものなんですが、良かったらどうぞ。
If there is anything of mine that you’d like, please help yourself.
But I have a feeling the English is not quite right. Doesn’t the Japanese say “I received it (as a present), but I would like to give it to you.” Or, “I received it (as a present), (but if that’s ok with you) won’t you take it?”
Weblio says 「 人から貰った物」for 頂きもの
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Yeah, that meaning is included in “anything of mine.” I think the English here does represent something someone might actually say in this scenario, even if it’s not a literal translation.
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Why do they sometimes say 私にはわかりません as opposed to 私はわかりません?
Grammatically, it’s because わかる can take two different argument patterns: XがYがわかる or more commonly XにYがわかる; and when you topicalise X with は, が drops but not に. XがYがわかる => XがはYがわかる but XにYがわかる => XにはYがわかる. Well, that’s one way to see it, anyway.
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Thanks for your reply. I was actually looking for more of difference in meaning between the two though. I asked a native speaker what the difference is and they gave me this.
They both have the same meaning, although “私にはわかりません” has a kind of strong implication of “although I feel other people know, I myself do not know”.
But I don’t understand how that works grammatically. Usually when you use は it automatically implies that others don’t know. Here it looks like に is doing that.
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I’m not sure if it’s the right topic or not, but here is a sentence from a jlpt prep book :
良い写真とは、そこに写っている世界に入ってみたくなるような、あるいは、知らないうちに、われを忘れて写真と話し込んでいるような、画面の中からいくつもの言葉が聞こえてくるような写真のことをいうのではないでしょうか。
This sentence is killing me. Can’t make head or tail of it. I understand fragment of it, but not at all the structure.
良い写真とは = A good picture (topic of the entire sentence)
そこに写っている世界に入ってみたくなる、 = make you want to enter the world photographed
あるいは, = or
知らないうちに, = before one knew it
われを忘れて写真と話し込んでいる = forget oneself (?) and talk deeply to the picture
画面の中からいくつもの言葉が聞こえてくる = lot of word can be hear from from the image
写真のことをいう = …say the picture ?? ( who say what to who ?? )
のではないでしょうか = isn’t it
What’s going with the ような not followed by any noun, abrupt comma everywhere, weird 写真のことをいう ?
It’s listing lots of possible things that make pictures interesting, so yeah, it does feel like it jumps around a lot, but all the segments modify 写真のこと at the end, basically.
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Ah !! You mean the whole sentence is …ような…ような…ような写真のこと !??
Got it, thanks !
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This is something that’s been bugging me lately, and I couldn’t find an explanation for it online.
Sometimes, I see verbs written like 住んでる. This is te-iru form right? If so, why isn’t it just 住んでいる? (Using 住む as an example)
It’s a contraction, like “don’t” for “do not”. If you listen you’ll hear that people often pronounce things that way, especially in informal or rough speech.
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は as a topic marking particle also has the effect of adding contrast. Xは is often translated as “as for X”, but it can also strongly imply “as for X, as opposed to…(other things in the same range as X)”. For example, when asked:
ヘビーメタルは好きですか？
you can answer
このバンドは好きだけど。。。（他は好きじゃない）
I’ve seen it exemplified that, if you want to compliment someone, you should take care to use が and not は, because of this contrasting nature of は.
あなたの目はきれいです！ might add the implication that just the eyes are pretty, and everything else isn’t, so 目がきれいです！ is a much better option.
There’s a lot on は and が, and other stuff in Jay Rubin’s Making Sense of Japanese, I found it a great resource.
As @bolaurent mentioned, it’s a contraction used in the spoken language. To add to this, the て form is prone to contractions, actually almost every て form construction can be contracted in some way. Some examples, in case you come across them and wonder what they are:
ている → てる (a dialectical variant in dialects where おる is used instead of いる is ておる → とる)
ておく → とく
てある → たる
てあげる → たげる
てしまう → ちゃう or ちまう
It’s not just with verbs, this also happens with は (can’t think of other particles where this happens):
ては → ちゃ
では → じゃ
You might actually be familiar with this pattern thanks to ではない → じゃない / ではありません → じゃありません
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To be honest, I’m not sure. 
Perhaps a simple heuristic explanation, as to why には feels more contrastive, would be that if you look at the different argument structures 私｛に・が・がは・には｝Xがわかりません:
- が is strongly focusing 私 “it is I who”, whereas は is fairly neutral “about me, [one thing is]”;
- however, に is neutral, so adding は would tend to play up the negative—I am not convinced that it is the only possible interpretation, but maybe the most common?
P.S.: Also, to me, 私はわかりません (without saying what is not understood) already feels quite contrastive, since it’s hard to imagine a prompt such as “tell me about you” that would elicit such an answer. Perhaps “tell me about someone who doesn’t know” would work?
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Hey, I have a quick question about some grammar from a Japanese-English test I’m looking over. The question on the test is 「トムは１０ドルも持っている。」 with a translation of 「Tom has no less than 10 dollars.」 Is Xも～ている a consistent form to mean “no less than”, and if so, can you say Xも～ていない to convey “no more than”?
Thanks 
I think it’s just this: Use も to emphasize numbers
Since, in this case, 10 dollars seems to be a lot (or just being specific), it translates to “No less than 10 dollars.”
As seen on the link above:
- even; as much as; as many as; as far as; as long as; no less than; no fewer than
used for emphasis or to express absence of doubt regarding a quantity, etc.
I’d also say the ている part has nothing to do with that, since it’s just 持っている・“has”.
Also, as seen on Maggie Sensei, you can use it for negative sentences, but it’s usually still for emphasis, like:
もう彼女に三日も会っていない。
I haven’t seen her (or my girlfriend) for “three days”.
Implying it’s still a lot.
Unless you went for “not even one ~”/ “not to do ~ at all” / “without doing something at all”.
Which would be: 一 + counter unit + も + negative sentence
お酒は一滴も飲めません。
(can’t even drink a drop of alcohol)
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Could someone please tell me if this is grammatically correct?
“この植物は毒中です。でも、花がきれいね”
I’m making someone a thank you drawing/comic for taking me to the botanic garden (I mainly walked around going “that’s poison, that’s poison, that one’s poison too”
I wouldn’t say there is a grammar issue. But the word for poisonous is 有毒.
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