I read on Jisho.org that the も particle can mean:

  4. even if; even though; although; in spite of​. Often as 〜ても, 〜でも, 〜とも, etc.

I was translating「事故だったと言っても」, and I was wondering how the meaning changes.
From my current understanding, it could mean:

  1. Even if you said it was an accident...
  2. You also said it was an accident...

The full sentence is 「事故だったと言っても信じてもらえないんですよね。」("...I would not believe you.")

When can も be taken to mean 'even if'? From the Jisho example, it says ても, and
the Japanese quote uses て-form for 言って, with も right after, so does it only
mean 'even if' after a て- formed verb?
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2019-03-14T05:27:09.503
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2022-09-17T16:08:35.950
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particle-も
When does も mean 'even though'?
That entry for も in JMdict (main dictionary of jisho.org) is a little
misleading.

J->J dictionaries define ても as its own construct to have the meanings "even
if", "even though", among others. The precise formation is

> verb/adjective (連用形) + ても (sometimes でも or っても depending on the
> verb/adjective)

This is the formation used in the sentence you provided.

Now, it is true that も can also mean "even if", "even though", etc. just like
ても -- so JMdict isn't wrong in that sense -- but there's a caveat. The usage
of も in this way has different formation rules than ても, and it's an "old-
fashioned" style of phrasing according to 明鏡国語辞典 第二版:

> 〘接助〙《動詞の連体形や形容詞の連用形に付いて》…ても。  
>  「今日に至るも完成を見ない」  
>  「どんなに多くも五人までだ」  
>  「遅くも三時までには着く」  
>  ▶ 古風な言い方。

Formation for this usage of も is

> [verb (連体形) / adjective (連用形)] + も

* * *

Side notes:

  1. You gave two ways to interpret 「事故だったと言っても」. The first one is possible. The second interpretation is not possible, grammatically speaking.

  2. If a person A is the one saying 「事故だったと言っても信じてもらえないんですよね。」, that person A cannot also be the one who could not be convinced that "it was an accident", so you should re-evaluate your "...I would not believe you." translation.
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2019-03-16T06:21:50.067
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2019-03-16T06:21:50.067
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answer