← Grammar bank

Formation: V / い-adj plain form (present or past) + としても; N / な-adj + だ／だった + としても; often with たとえ／仮に; sentence-initial だとしても (even so)

The speaker supposes X for the sake of argument and says the outcome Y would not change. Plain 〜ても and たとえ〜ても can also describe things that really happened (雨が降っても出かけた), but としても always presents X as a supposition, so it suits hypotheses, rumours and uncertain claims. It is used in both speech and writing, and in casual speech it becomes としたって. 〜にしても／にしろ are close in meaning and often concede a fact that is already known ('granted that'), while 〜たところで stresses that doing X would be pointless, and 〜としたら draws a conclusion from the premise rather than saying it makes no difference. With nouns and な-adjectives the だ is required: without it, N + としても means 'also as' (歌手としても = also as a singer), which is a different construction.

Variants: たとえ〜としても、仮に〜としても、〜だとしても、〜だったとしても、だとしても、としたって

Examples

• たとえ失敗したとしても、挑戦したことに意味がある。
  Even if you fail, there's value in having tried.
• 今から急いだとしても、終電には間に合わないだろう。
  Even if we hurry now, we probably won't make the last train.
• 仮にその情報が事実だとしても、公表すべきではない。
  Even supposing the information is true, it shouldn't be made public.

In real texts 0 occurrence(s)

No post has used this pattern yet. Examples from real texts will appear here.