即使…也…grammar point · tier 2 · concessive conditional 即使…也… (even if … still)
Grant the most extreme or unlikely case, and the outcome in the second clause holds anyway.
字源 FORM what the parts do
即 sets the case right up against you, granted on the spot (使 — make it so, suppose it). 也 sits before the second verb and holds the outcome the same no matter what the first clause put forward. The case being conceded sits after 即使; the thing that does not budge sits after 也.
故事 STORY a scene to remember it by
即使 piles the case as high as it will go; 也 stands at the far side and does not move.
字源自撰記憶法
框 · Frame
即使 [extreme/hypothetical case] ，[subj] 也 [outcome that holds]
觸 · Trigger
You want to push a condition to its limit and show it changes nothing.
序 · The move
1After 即使, put the hardest or least likely case — the one most expected to overturn the outcome.Is this case granted as supposition, not stated as a current fact? (Fact → use 雖然.)
2Open the second clause with the subject, then 也 before the verb.Does 也 sit before the verb, not at the head of the clause?
3State the outcome that survives the case.Would the outcome still be true if the conceded case were dropped? It must hold either way.
例 · Examples
1即使even if大學畢業graduate了(completed)，平時ordinarily, day to day自己也still, all the same要must多more學習study新的知識knowledge。
Even if you have graduated from university, you still have to keep learning new knowledge on your own day to day.
即使 grants a case as supposition (even if it were so); 雖然 concedes a case as actual fact (it is so). 即使…也… for the hypothetical or extreme; 雖然…但是… for the real.
如果…就… draws a consequence that follows from the condition; 即使…也… draws an outcome that resists the condition. 就 obeys the if; 也 defies it.
即使你不來，但是我也去。 ✗ → 即使你不來，我也去。 ✓ (即使 pairs with 也, not 但是.)
即使下雨，也我們去。 ✗ → 即使下雨，我們也去。 ✓ (也 goes before the verb, after the subject.)
雖然天氣不好，我也要去。 ✗ → 即使天氣不好，我也要去。 ✓ (a granted/hypothetical case takes 即使, not 雖然.)
English uses one word, even, for both even if (hypothetical) and even though (factual); Chinese splits them into 即使 and 雖然, and the second clause needs 也 rather than a bare verb.