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Here is a sentence from Dragon Ball :

一気にこれ以上修業したって意味はないって。限界までやったんだ。

悟空 says this to his son who's worried because they just chill out before a battle instead of training until the last minute.

As far as I know, the second って means と言っている and is used to insist on what precedes it, like : "And I'm telling you that..." in English. Am I right here?

As for the first って, I don't know if it means という, or even というのは :

I'm telling you that it wouldn't have made sense to train more than that without pausing.

Or if, as I think, it's part of たって meaning ても :

I'm telling you that even if we trained more than that without pausing, it wouldn't make sense.

Is there a way to tell one from the other when a word like 意味 comes after?

Chocolate
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Alox
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2 Answers2

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「[一気]{いっき}にこれ[以上]{いじょう}[修行]{しゅぎょう}したって[意味]{いみ}はないって。[限界]{げんかい}までやったんだ。」

"As far as I know, the second って means と言っている and is used to insist on what precedes it, like : "And I'm telling you that..." in English. Am I right here?"

Right. The second って is quotative, implying "Here is what I want to say and I know what I'm talking about.".

"As for the first って, I don't know if it means という, or even というのは"

"Or if, as I think, it's part of たって meaning ても "

It is part of たって, which is the informal way of saying ても or たとしても. These express a non-resultative hypothetical condition, which is why your TL:

"I'm telling you that even if we trained more than that without pausing, it wouldn't make sense."

could not be any better.

"Is there a way to tell one from the other when a word like 意味 comes after?"

You would need to look at the whole phrase, not just the single word, following the って -- in this case, 「意味はない」. If the phrase after the って seems contradictory to the phrase before, you have what I called the "non-resultative hypothetical condition" above. In the sentence in question, the two phrases are "to train hard" and "it is nonsense".

I could, however, easily form a sentence containing a 「って意味」 in which って actually can be replaced by という rather than by ても or たとしても.

「その[単語]{たんご}に『[食]{た}べる』って意味はないよ。」= The word does not have the meaning of "to eat".

So, you would need to pay attention to the whole context as usual.

Chocolate
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The first って comes from とて originally and does, as you think, mean something a bit like ～ても here.

大辞泉 says

［接助］活用語の終止形、助詞などに付く。打消し・反語の意の表現を伴って、ある条件を述べそれが順当な予想に反する結果を生じることを表す。…としても。…といっても。「言った―、どうにもならない」→からとて →って

Attaches to the sentence final form of words, or other particles. Together with a a negative or rhetorical expression, it expresses that the result of some stated condition runs counter to what would be expected.

In your example:

一気にこれ以上修業したって意味はないって。限界までやったんだ。

Look, there's no point in training so much at once (even if you train more than this...). You've done as much as you can for now.

Brandon
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