Inability with "mei banfa"

没办法 means there's no way to do it — the situation, not the person, is at fault.

没办法 + Verb

How it works

我没办法帮你 — there's nothing I can do to help. Softer than 我不能帮你, because it blames circumstances.

Alone, 没办法 is a shrug: "nothing to be done".

有办法 is the positive: 我有办法.

wǒ méi bàn fǎ bāng nǐ
我没办法帮你。
There's no way I can help you.
méi bàn fǎ, zhǐ néng zhè yàng le
没办法，只能这样了。
Nothing to be done — it'll have to be this way.
wǒ méi bàn fǎ jiě jué zhè ge wèn tí
我没办法解决这个问题。
I can't solve this problem.