たところで details
write + (past) + even if you did — and it would get you nowhere
kaita tokoro de
even if you did — and it would get you nowhere
meaning: even if you were to write
今さら謝ったところで、彼女の気持ちは戻らない。
imasara ayamatta tokoro de, kanojo no kimochi wa modoranai.
Her feelings won't come back even if you were to apologize at this point. neutral
いくら文句を言ったとこで、決まったことは変わらないよ。
ikura monku o itta toko de, kimatta koto wa kawaranai yo.
However much you complain, what's been decided isn't going to change. casual
- contraction
Examples
even if — supposes an action and dismisses it in advance as futile, often with 今[いま]さら, いくら or どんなに
今さら謝ったところで、彼女の気持ちは戻らない。
imasara ayamattatokorode, kanojo no kimochi wa modoranai.
Her feelings won't come back even if you were to apologize at this point. neutral
いくら文句を言ったとこで、決まったことは変わらないよ。
ikura monku o itta toko de, kimatta koto wa kawaranai yo.
However much you complain, what's been decided isn't going to change. casual
今の体制のまま人員を増やしたところで、根本的な解決にはなりません。
ima no taisei no mama jin'in o fuyashita tokoro de, konponteki na kaiketsu ni wa narimasen.
Even if we increase headcount under the present structure, it will not amount to a fundamental solution. formal
Formation
{V-ta}ところでattaches to た-form
Variant notes
- たとこで — speech clips ところ to とこ, as it does in ところだった — 今さら言ったとこで. Conversation and messaging only.
Notes
clause is normally non-past. 〜たところで also reads plainly as "at the point
where X was done"; only a futility verdict after it picks out this pattern.
Related patterns
Similar
ても concedes any condition and leaves the main clause free to go either way (急いでも間に合う is as ordinary as 間に合わない); たところで has already written the attempt off, so its main clause must be a denial — 急いだところで間に合わない is idiomatic, ×急いだところで間に合う is not.
としても grants a supposition and insists the outcome holds regardless, leaving that outcome open; たところで claims the supposition would achieve nothing — and としても takes any predicate in front (学生だとしても, 高いとしても) where たところで wants a verb in た-form, non-verbal uses being marginal.
Lookalikes
The authored ところで opens a sentence with nothing before it and changes the subject ("by the way"), and any continuation at all may follow; たところで must have a た-form verb welded in front of it, can never begin a sentence, and forces a negative or dismissive main clause — if a verb precedes and 無駄だ／間に合わない follows, it is never the topic-shift.
ところに frames a moment that really arrived and demands an event cutting into it from outside (帰ってきたところに電話が鳴った); this たところで supposes an act that has not happened and answers it with a denial, so the MAIN CLAUSE decides the reading — 無駄だ／変わらない makes it the concessive, while a plain report of what followed (家を出たところで雨が降り出した) is the temporal ところ, not this pattern.