Tuesday, December 17, 2019

usage - Use of ~ても but what follows ~ is obvious rather than contrary to expectations


The gist of my question is that for the following statements, the ~ても feels out of place. More specifically, it almost feels absurd to make the exasperated "even if/although" statement in the first place, as the following statement is entirely expected.


I had this in the back of my head for a while. Sometimes I didn't comprehend the sentence correctly at first, so the ても initially felt out of place, but that was my problem. However, there were still some sentences that I'm fairly sure I didn't misunderstand that still had this logical disconnect. These three, for example, that I saved over time:




こいつ殴るとき全然腰入れてないし、男の腕力と比べてもやっぱりそこは普通の女子っぽい



She doesn't use her lower half when striking me, even if (?) compared to a guy's strength, her arm strength is definitely girl-esque. (Well, no duh, guys are stronger than girls.)



一度にそんなにたくさん言われても対応出来るかァァ


前から思ってたんだ!! お前らちゃんと一列に並べェェ!!




  • speaker taking orders at the register but all the customers are shouting at once



Even if (?) all of you are ordering this much at once, I can't take your orders! (This is probably the worst offender, as being unable to take all the orders is just a no-brainer if they're all shouting at once.)



建学の精神は結構ですけれど、いきなり共学の是非を生徒に問われても、困惑するしかないでしょう?




  • introducing co-ed to an all-girls school


The founding principles of the school are pretty damn ingrained, but even if we suddenly ask the students about the pros/cons of coeducation, it would only cause bewilderment. (Well, yeah, if you suddenly thrust that upon the students, it would obviously cause issues...)





More clearly, for 一度にそんなにたくさん言われても対応出来るかァァ!




  1. Even if all of you are ordering this much at once, I can't take your orders!




  2. If all of you are ordering this much at once, I can't take your orders!




The first translation makes no sense, but it feels like that's what the original sentence was saying. Comparatively, the 2nd "translation" makes more sense, but it's not what is actually being said so to speak...





Edit 1:


Dug up this one as well, regarding date plans:



変に気張ってもお互い緊張するだけなので、今日はこんな感じでまったり彼女と過ごすことにする。



(Even?) if I go full tryhard on today's activities, it would only make both of us uncomfortable, so today I'm gonna take it easy with her.


Perhaps a less extreme example, but I still feel it gets the feeling across.


Edit 2:


Reading this again after finding yet another related sentence where other initial ambiguities made choosing between ても as ても or たら a nontrivial issue; and vice versa.



The given answer here doesn't apply after looking at it again, since with 「いかに努めても…できない」 etc., there is some expectation that ~ in ~ても will produce some desirable outcome before it is negated to emphasize how "全く…できない" it is.


As with all of the given examples and あんまりゆっくりしてても、お母さん帰ってきちゃうかもだし…, there isn't really any expectation that ~ in ~ても would produce an outcome that would be worthy of a negation. As in this case, doing it really slowly can only result in the mom coming back before they were finished, so negating it doesn't have any of the 全く…できない effect. Overall, the 「ても」→「たら」interpretation is more natural and intuitive, but I have yet to see it confirmed anywhere.


Is there a more academic confirmation out there?




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