Question Word + ても / でも in Japanese: Whatever, Whoever, Wherever

Add ても or でも to a question word such as 何 (what), 誰 (who), どこ (where), or いつ (when), and the question becomes a broad "whatever, whoever, wherever." In linguistic terms, Japanese is building a universal quantifier, meaning it covers every possible answer.¹ The two endings split the meaning cleanly: 疑問詞＋ても reads "no matter what, the outcome is the same," while 疑問詞＋でも reads "any one is fine."²³

Overview

This pattern builds on the base ～ても concessive you already know. Place a question word inside that same て-form clause, and "even if X" widens to "for every value of X."²⁴

Built on ～ても, not a new pattern

You already met ～ても as "even if / even though" in the ～ても article, which covers the conjugation mechanics. Here the te-form clause simply contains a question word. That one change turns a single condition into every condition.²⁴

The te-form clause can use a verb (V-て + も), an い-adjective (い-adj -くて + も), a な-adjective (な-adj + でも), or a noun (N + でも). The question word fills the variable slot inside it.²

The question word in this slot is what linguists call an indeterminate pronoun, a term from Kuroda's 1965 study. It means a wh-word that carries no quantity meaning of its own and gets its force from the particle attached to it.¹⁵ Depending on the operator it pairs with, the same wh-word can read as existential, universal, interrogative, negative-polarity, or free-choice.¹ The te-form + も clause supplies the universal operator, which is why "even if" becomes "for every."

The particle, not the question word, sets the meaning

何 by itself means only "what." It becomes "something," "anything," or "nothing" through the particle that follows it: か, でも, or も. Learning the three particles is simpler than memorizing each compound as a separate word.¹⁶

The two readings: "no matter" vs "any"

疑問詞＋ても is the concessive reading. The question word ranges over every alternative inside a full clause. The main clause then says the outcome holds for all of them: "no matter what / who / when, [result]."²

疑問詞＋でも is the free-choice reading. でも attaches straight onto a bare question word to make a standalone "any-" pronoun or adverb: 何でも "anything," 誰でも "anyone." The reading is "any one will do, every one qualifies."³⁷

The でも here is how も appears after nouns and な-adjectives: で (the te-form of the copula だ) plus も. It is the same でも that the base ～ても takes after nouns. In the indeterminate-pronoun framework, both endings are universal: も, appearing as ても or でも, is the universal quantifier over the alternatives, paired with the existential か.¹⁸³

Form: how to build it

Question word + ても (verb / adjective clause)

The question word sits inside a te-form clause and keeps its normal case particle: 何を食べても, 誰が来ても, 誰に聞いても.⁹² The templates are question word + V-て + も, question word + い-adj-くて + も, and question word + な-adj or N + でも.²

何なにを食たべても美味おいしくない。⁴
"No matter what I eat, it doesn't taste good."

誰だれに聞きいても「わからない」と言いう。⁹
"No matter who you ask, they say they don't understand."

このお店みせはいつ来きても混こんでいる。⁹
"No matter when you come to this shop, it's crowded."

どこに行いっても人ひとで混こんでいる。⁴
"Wherever you go, it's crowded with people."

Other question words fit the same way. 何度 ("how many times") and どれ ("which one") work as readily as 何 and 誰: 何度注意しても "no matter how many times I warn," どれを食べても "no matter which one you eat."⁹

Question word + でも (the noun-slot quantifier)

でも attaches to the bare question word with no preceding case particle. This produces a fixed "any-" word: 何でも, 誰でも, どこでも, いつでも, どれでも, どちらでも, いくらでも.³⁷ Note that 何でも is read なんでも, not なにでも.⁶

ここには何なんでもあるよ。⁷
"This place has anything you want."

この仕事しごとは誰だれでもできる。³
"Anyone can do this job."

どこでも好すきなところに座すわっていいよ。⁷
"You can sit anywhere you like."

いつでも家いえに来きてください。³
"Please come to my house anytime."

どちらでもどうぞ。⁷
"Take whichever one you like."

Particles inside the pattern

The two endings treat case particles differently, which makes this a common source of mistakes. With ても, the question word keeps its case particle before the te-form verb: 何を食べても, 誰が来ても, 誰に聞いても, どこへ行っても.⁹²

With でも, the bare quantifier normally absorbs or drops を and が. The correct form is 何でも食べる ("eats anything"), not 何をでも食べる, and 誰でもできる ("anyone can do it"), not 誰がでもできる.³⁷

を and が drop after でも, but locatives stay

Only を and が are dropped after でも. Particles that carry their own meaning can stay, which is why どこでも already encodes the locative "anywhere" without needing に.⁷

Nuance and usage contexts

"No matter what": the concessive reading (ても)

The main clause is fixed. The question word ranges over all alternatives, and the outcome holds for every one. The teaching rule is simple: however the condition varies, the result does not change.⁹²

This is the difference from plain ～ても. Plain ～ても names a single concrete condition ("even if it rains"); adding a question word turns that single condition into every possible one.²

いくら寝ねても眠ねむい。⁴
"No matter how much I sleep, I'm still sleepy."

どんなに頑張がんばっても彼かれにはかなわない。⁴
"No matter how hard I try, I can't beat him."

あの人ひとはいくら食たべても太ふとらないそうです。⁹
"They say no matter how much he eats, he doesn't gain weight."

彼かれはどこに行いっても人気者にんきものになる。⁹
"No matter where he goes, he becomes popular."

"Anyone / anything is fine": the free-choice reading (でも)

疑問詞＋でも opens the whole set: any member qualifies. The flavor is permission or possibility ("can," "is fine," "may").³⁷ It is usually affirmative; the speaker is including the entire set, not denying it.¹⁷

僕ぼくは何なんでもいいよ。⁶
"I'm fine with anything."

いつでも電話でんわに出でるから。³
"I'll answer the phone anytime, so don't worry."

月曜日げつようび以外いがいならいつでもいいですよ。⁷
"Any day is fine except Monday."

この箱はこの中なかにあるもの、何なんでもあげます。⁷
"I'll give you anything that's in this box."

Inclusive vs exclusive: the か / も / でも trio

The same indeterminate pronoun takes three different particles to create three different quantifiers: か is existential ("some-"), でも is universal free-choice ("any-"), and も with a negative verb is negative-polarity ("no-").¹⁸⁶ In the academic analysis, か is the existential quantifier and も is the universal quantifier. When the indeterminate pairs with negation, it gives the "none" reading.¹⁸

Question word	+ か (existential, "some")	+ でも (universal free-choice, "any")	+ も + negative (negative-polarity, "no")
何 (なに / なん)	何か "something"6	何でも "anything"36	何も〜ない "nothing"6
誰 (だれ)	誰か "someone"6	誰でも "anyone"36	誰も〜ない "no one"6
どこ	どこか "somewhere"6	どこでも "anywhere"36	どこも〜ない "nowhere"6
いつ	いつか "sometime"6	いつでも "anytime"36	いつも〜ない "not always" (see note)6

The いつ row breaks the symmetry. いつも is lexicalized as "always" (affirmative). It does not form a clean "never" the way 何も, 誰も, and どこも do; with a negative it reads "not always" rather than "none."⁶

何なにか食たべたい。⁶
"I want to eat something."

何なにも食たべたくない。⁶
"I don't want to eat anything."

誰だれもいません。⁶
"There's no one here."

も as "every" vs も as "none"

The split between inclusive and exclusive meanings is でも versus bare も. でも sweeps affirmatively ("any / every": 何でも, 誰でも). Bare 疑問詞 + も is tied to negation and reads "none / not any" (何も, 誰も, どこも), so it requires a negative predicate.¹⁶

In the indeterminate-pronoun analysis, bare も with negation is the negative-polarity reading. It is separate from the universal reading that でも carries.¹ 何も, 誰も, and どこも need a negative verb; pairing them with a positive verb to mean "nothing / no one" is ungrammatical.⁶

誰だれも来こなかった。⁶
"No one came."

どこも開あいていない。⁶
"Nowhere is open."

誰だれでも来こられる。³
"Anyone can come."

Register and intensified forms

どんなに〜ても and いくら〜ても are the scalar version of the concessive, meaning they deal with scale: "no matter how much" or "no matter to what degree." They quantify over a degree or quantity rather than over a set of discrete items.²⁴

いくら emphasizes amount or number ("no matter how much, how many times"), while どんなに emphasizes degree or manner ("no matter how intensely").⁴

どんなに忙いそがしくても毎日まいにち電話でんわする。²
"No matter how busy I am, I call every day."

いくら高たかくても買かう。⁴
"No matter how expensive it is, I'll buy it."

何杯なんばい飲のんでも酔よっぱらわない。⁹
"No matter how many glasses I drink, I don't get drunk."

Good to know

Why でも also looks like "even if": ても vs でも once more

Out of context, a noun plus でも is ambiguous. 学生でも can mean "even a student" (the base N + でも concessive) or "any student" (free-choice). Only the surrounding clause settles it.³

A preceding question word forces the free-choice reading: 誰でも is "anyone." A plain noun before でも leans toward the "even" concessive: 学生でも is "even a student."³ The reason is that でも is で (the copula te-form) plus も. The same surface form serves both the noun-concessive and the free-choice quantifier, and what comes before it resolves the ambiguity.³

Sentence-initial でも ("but / however") is a different word entirely and has nothing to do with this pattern.

何でも is not 何も

The most common mix-up is treating 何でも (affirmative "anything") as if it meant 何も (negative "nothing"). Writing 何でも食べない to mean "I don't eat anything" is wrong. でも pairs with a positive predicate, so 何でも食べる means "I eat anything." For the negative sense, use bare も with a negative verb.

何なにも食たべない。⁶
"I don't eat anything."

Use this short memory hook: でも is affirmative "any," and bare も is negative "none." The extra で adds the positive set, while も alone collapses to "nothing" under negation.¹⁶

When ても and でも overlap

何を選んでも (a full te-form clause, "no matter which you choose") and どれでも (a free-choice pronoun, "whichever") can both translate the English "whichever."⁹³ The choice between them is structural, not a meaning difference you need to agonize over.

If a verb or adjective clause wraps the question word, use ても; if it is a bare question word standing in a noun slot, use でも.²³

See also

• ～ても: How to Say "Even If" and "Even Though" in Japanese
• The も Particle: Also, Too
• The か Particle: Question Marker (and Disjunction)
• The さえ Particle: Even
• ～てもいい / ～てはいけない: How to Ask Permission and State Prohibition in Japanese
• ～なくてもいい / ～なくていい: How to Say "You Don't Have To" in Japanese

References

Footnotes

1. Kratzer, Angelika, and Junko Shimoyama. "Indeterminate Pronouns: The View from Japanese." Paper presented at the 3rd Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, March 2002; a shorter version appears in Yukio Otsu (ed.), The Proceedings of the Third Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo, 2002, pp. 1–25. https://people.umass.edu/partee/RGGU_2004/Indeterminate%20Pronouns.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

2. NIHONGO NET. "JLPT N3 Grammar: Question word + 〜ても." https://nihongo-net.com/2019/08/29/jlptn3-question-temo/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

3. Bunpro. "でも (JLPT N4)." https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%A7%E3%82%82 (limitation) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

4. Maggie Sensei. "Wh-ever / No matter wh-/how: ても・でも." https://maggiesensei.com/2016/10/12/wh-everno-matter-whhow-%E3%81%A6%E3%82%82%E3%81%A7%E3%82%82-temodemo/ (limitation) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

5. Kuroda, S.-Y. Generative Grammatical Studies in the Japanese Language. PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965. (Cited in ¹ and ⁸ as the origin of the term "indeterminate pronoun.") ↩

6. Tae Kim. "Question words and particles" (Guide to Japanese Grammar). https://guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete/questionwords (limitation) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶

7. Kanshudo. "Grammar detail: question word + でも." https://www.kanshudo.com/grammar/question-word%E3%81%A7%E3%82%82 (limitation) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

8. Shimoyama, Junko. "Indeterminate Phrase Quantification in Japanese." Natural Language Semantics 14, no. 2 (2006): 139–173. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11050-006-0001-5 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. 日本語の例文 (j-nihongo). "疑問詞 + 〜ても【JLPT N4 Grammar】." https://j-nihongo.com/questionwordtemo/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰