Concessive conditionals

A fact or a possibility?

In B1 you met iako (although). It concedes something that is TRUE: Iako pada kiša, trčimo. — Although it is raining, we are running. The rain is real, and we run anyway.

Often you want to say something stronger: whatever MIGHT happen, the result stays the same. The rain is not here yet — maybe it will come, maybe not — and you dismiss it in advance: Čak i ako padne kiša, trčaćemo maraton. — Even if it rains, we'll run the marathon. A condition is granted and then declared irrelevant. Grammarians call this a concessive conditional; in English it is mostly even if and no matter how.

Ask yourself: is it already true? Then iako. Is it only possible? Then čak i ako. Never combine them — there is no čak i iako.

The six ways to say it

čak i ako — a real possibility

This is simply ako from A2 with čak i (even) in front. Everything you know about ako still holds: the present (usually a perfective verb) or the bude-future in the condition, and the future or an imperative in the main clause. Zvaću te čak i ako bude kasno. — I'll call you even if it's late.

makar — whatever it costs

makar says: I will do it, even at that price. It is followed by the l-participle on its own, with no sam, je or bi — and the participle still agrees with the person it is about:

Popeću se na taj vrh, makar mi trebalo tri dana. — I'll climb that peak even if it takes me three days. You will also hear makar da + present with the same meaning, and makar i + a word meaning even if only: makar i malo — even if only a little.

ma koliko and koliko god — no matter how much

In lesson 10 you met ko god, šta god, ma ko: whoever, whatever. The same god and ma attach to koliko (how much), and now the result joins two clauses: however much the first one is true, the second one still holds. The two mean the same thing; ma stands in FRONT of koliko, god comes AFTER it.

• Ma koliko se trudila, nije mogla da zaspi. — However hard she tried, she couldn't fall asleep.
• Koliko god puta pao, on uvek ustane. — However many times he falls, he always gets up.
• Koliko god da je umorna, svako jutro trči. — No matter how tired she is, she runs every morning.

After either one you may use the bare l-participle, as with makar (koliko god bilo teško), or an ordinary tense — after koliko god usually with da in front of it (koliko god da je teško).

bez obzira na to što — the fact does not matter

bez obzira na literally means without regard to. With to što it takes a whole clause, and that clause states a FACT, like iako — but with extra force: the fact is real and it simply does not count. Idemo na planinu bez obzira na to što je prognoza loša. — We are going to the mountain regardless of the bad forecast. When the thing is an open question rather than a fact, swap što for da li: bez obzira na to da li pobedimo — regardless of whether we win.

i da — even if, only imagined

Remember the unreal condition from B1: Da imam vremena, išla bih. — If I had time, I'd go. That da is the unreal if, not the da meaning that. Put i or čak i in front and it becomes even if: the situation is imagined, and even then nothing would change. The other clause is usually in the conditional.

• Čak i da imam vremena, ne bih išla s njima. — Even if I had time, I wouldn't go with them.
• I da sam znao koliko je teško, opet bih to uradio. — Even if I had known how hard it was, I'd have done it again.
• I da hoću, ne mogu da odustanem. — Even if I wanted to, I couldn't give up.

English uses even if for both čak i ako and i da. Choose by how real the situation is: something that may well happen takes čak i ako (and a future in the main clause); something you are only imagining takes i da / čak i da (and a conditional). A sentence starting I da... is not And that... — read on to the comma.