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I am trying to translate this statement and understand the use of いくら:

いくら俺でも鬼じゃあるまいしアルバムまで捨てたりは...

I think it means something like:

I'm not an ogre so throwing away even an album...

if someone could correct my translation and explain the grammar behind the いくら俺でも part, I would appreciate it.

2 Answers 2

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「いくら + (Person) + でも + Negative expression」

is a common and important sentence pattern. It being Japanese, however, the negative expression is often left unsaid. The non-sentence in question is a stereotypical example of this phenomenon.

「いくら俺{おれ}でも鬼{おに}じゃあるまいしアルバムまで捨{す}てたりは・・・」

What is left unsaid here (and instead "expressed" with 「・・・」) would surely be a negative phrase like 「しない」、「しないよ」、「しないさ」, etc.

"However (adjective that fits the context) (the person) may be, he would not do ~~~."

is the meaning of this sentence pattern. To apply this to your "non-sentence", one would come up with a translation like:

"However evil I may be, I am no ogre and I would not go so far as to throw out an album."

I just selected the adjective "evil" and the phrase "would not" for the sake of translation. Clearly, those are not found in the original.

The key is to know what is left unsaid; otherwise, you will not be able to translate something like this into English or other languages.

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"いくら俺でも" implicates "みんな良く知っているように、俺は善人ではない。多少は酷いことをした奴(人間)だ。しかし、さすがにそんな俺でも"

"いくら俺でも、鬼じゃあるまいし" => I admit that I'm not a good person. If I were a devil, I thrown away the album (that is something very special for you,) but I'm not as bad as devil. So I never do it.

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