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I was looking up the conjugation of 言う, and the passive form of it is 言われる. In the sentence below, which I did not write, ても gets attached to that verb form after first dropping る. Can someone please explain the grammar behind why it was dropped? What does ても mean in this case?

急にそんなこと言われても困るよ。

BJ Dela Cruz
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1 Answers1

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も is roughly "even", "also". Attached to a verb's て-form, it has a meaning of "even (if)".

言われても thus literally means "even if told".

A translation for you sentence might look like this: "I'm going to worry/be in trouble even if you suddenly tell me that!" (even if I'm being told that)

Thibalator
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    Personally, I think this is one of the places the "even if" translation doesn't work too well. –  Apr 29 '16 at 13:52
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    I agree. I did think it was easier to understand the rough idea that way though, hence why I went for some sort of literal translation rather than a proper one. I should have been clearer about that. – Thibalator Apr 30 '16 at 20:55
  • @Thibalator I think the speaker of the sentence is complaining from the '急にそんなこと言われたこと', so your translation doesn't look comfortable to. I think the correct English translation'd be: 'It's bothering that it's said/told rapidly like that'. – raruna Jul 27 '20 at 14:30
  • @Thibalator but your literal translation of 言われても is correct as of what i know. – raruna Jul 27 '20 at 14:33