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俺だって聞けたら聞いてるよ!

The character got told "Why don't you ask your friend about it?" and then in the next dialog he reflects on that and says this.

I think he's saying it like "If I could ask, I'd ask!" but why is てる used over the simple 聞く? is it a specific grammar point?

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  • Another way to say the same thing: 聞けると思えば聞いた
    – Jimmy Yang
    Commented Jul 22 at 20:44
  • ^ 違うと思いますけど・・。「聞けるもんなら聞いてるよ」に近いんじゃないかと思いますが
    – chocolate ♦
    Commented Jul 24 at 16:22

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It's difficult to be certain without context, but this almost certainly means If I could ask, I'd have asked (already)!

That is, ている is being used here in the resultative sense, meaning have already asked. So if you think of 聞けたら聞く as If I could ask I would, 聞けたら聞いている would be If I could ask/could have asked, I would have.

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