Noun,
い-Adjective, or
な-Adjective +
てもいい is a construction in Japanese that is used to express that something is ‘okay’, or ‘alright’. It is also frequently used as a question to ask if you ‘can’, or ‘may’ do something.
-
電車(でんしゃ)でもいい。
I am fine even if it is by train. (It does not need to be by car)
-
お茶(ちゃ)冷(つめ)たくてもいい?
Is it okay even if the tea is cold? (Would you prefer I heat it?)
-
肉(にく)が好(す)きでもいい。
It is okay even if you like meat. (I won’t force you to eat something vegetarian)
As can be seen, with
い-Adjectives, we will need to use the conjugation form. This is created by removing the い and then replacing it with く.
This phrase is also regularly used without the
も, but is considered a bit more direct/casual in those cases. It is best to remove the
も only when talking to people that you know well.
てもいい is an expression that literally means
て (noun, etc)
も (also)
いい (is good).
Similarly to the
てもいい grammar point that is used with verbs, this variant may also be used as a question. To do this, you simply need to follow
てもいい with
ですか, or the more casual
の.