English translation:
no matter how
Structure:
いくら + Verb[ ても ]
いくら + いAdj[く] + ても
いくら + Noun + でも
いくら + なAdj + でも
Why do you only cover いくらでも and not arbitrary question work + でも?
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@seanblue Is this what you are looking for? We felt that grammar structures like いくらでも and どんなに~ても would benefit from having their own, dedicated grammar pages. Cheers.
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I’d be curious to see this expanded on too. Integrated Approach gives more examples:
いつ見ても no matter when (I/we/you) look
何を食べても no matter what (I/we/you) eat
どこへ行っても no matter where (I/we/you) go
etc.
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So for the structure “いくら + Noun + でも”, is the translation of いくら dependent on whatever the noun implies? For example, in a fictional setting, if the noun is a special power or something that doesn’t exist in the real world, would いくら be something like “how strong” or “how capable” even if the full sentence fragment is “いくら [power] でも” and doesn’t have a verb or adjective being modified by the structure? Sorry if this is a confusing question…
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No matter what the noun is, いくら just converts it to/treats it as something that is quantifiable. This just implies that whatever the (A) in いくら (A) でも is, is something that is expected to be sufficient for (B), but in reality isn’t.
For example:
相手がいくら騎士でも、槍の腕さえあれば勝てるだろう。
‘Regardless of whether your opponent is a knight or not, so long as you have skill with a spear, you can probably win.’
Or if you want to make it quantifiable ‘No matter how much of a knight your opponent is ~’