～ようと vs ～ようとも

Bunpro
#1

I’m pretty frustrated by two grammar points:
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/とも
and
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/-よう--おう-まい%20-%20が-と

Both of them could mean “No matter” or “Even if”, but one takes ～ようと as a correct answer and another one takes ～ようとも and I have nothing but guess which one to choose.
There are rare cases when Bunpro accepts two answers interchangeably or throws a hint, but mostly it just shows red to me. Most of the time I just silently accepts it because maybe I’m really doing something wrong there?..
Maybe I don’t understand some important nuance between those points? Right now I got wrong " 調味（）料（）が限（）られようとも、彼女（）はあるもので美味（）しい料理（）が作（）れる。" answering ようと instead of ようとも. Is this unacceptable here?

If these points are purely interchangeable, dear Bunpro team, please make them so, or at least make it throw a hint :slight_smile:
P.S. Those points are my pain in the ass for about six months, sorry if this post is kinda grumpy :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:

1 Like
#2

As far as bunpro is concerned, とも questions display “primarily written” in the gap while -ようが questions display “emphatic”.

Otherwise, I think it can be difficult to distinguish them in certain cases. But they’re not purely interchangeable.

Some differences in how they’re used are:

  1. -ようとも normally appears once in a sentence, and as bunpro says, often “together with WH words (who, what, where, how, why, when)”
  2. -ようと・-ようが often appears twice in a sentence to express contrast between two extremes
  3. -ようと・-ようが is, as bunpro says, often used for “strong feelings and unchangeable truths”

IMHO these don’t give a clear answer for the sentence you quoted. But they work for many of the sentences that bunpro actually uses in questions.

There also are some minor grammatical differences that don’t apply to that sentence:

  1. -ようとも can’t be used with だろう (it would have to be であろう)
  2. -ようとも can’t be used the negative volitional form -まい

I played around with these two in cram mode for a bit and found that some of the questions at least displayed a yellow hint when I tried an answer from the wrong grammar point. (Btw. the -ようが point shows up as "まい+が " in the cram selection, there’s no way I would have found this without a bookmark…)

The Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar says that the も can be deleted from Verb (volitional) + とも, so maybe leaving out the も from とも should trigger a yellow warning.

3 Likes
#3

@nekoyama thank you for such a comprehensive answer!

Oh, I’ve never noticed it :sweat_smile:
Depending on this hint feels like cheating though, because both of those points are quite formal and may be considered as primarily written I guess.

And vice versa then. Another example I had a hard time with:
日本語能力試験のために沢山の参考書を____、それを実際に使いこなさないなら意味が無い。[買う]
買おうとも is an “incorrect” answer here, Bunpro expects 買おうと without も. But in the example above it expects も for almost the same sentence structure, and it’s totally frustrating experience 🥲