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I'm translating a sentence, and I come across the particle も. I remember learning in my Beginner Japanese class that the particle も can be used to mean "too" in various situations, but that meaning is not applicable here. So then I went to https://jisho.org/search/も, for some possible alternative meanings. The Japanese sentence is

「ここにじっとしていてもしょうがない………か」

I believe a literal, word-by-word translation would be equivalent to the following:

Here at patiently to be (も) it can’t be helped…… I guess.

Adding what I think も means, and then turning the sentence into proper English resulted in the below translation:

"As far as patiently remaining here it can't be helped...... I guess."

My question is, did I use and therefore translate the particle も correctly, despite never learning this function of も in my Japanese classes?

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You can't translate the も alone because it is part of an expression.

This expression is Verb in TE form + も which means 'Even if' or 'Even though'. Here is a link that will provide you the way you should use it and some examples (https://japanesetest4you.com/flashcard/learn-jlpt-n4-grammar-%E3%81%A6%E3%82%82-temo/). In the sentence you gave, you have the verb する in the continuous form (している) and the ても expression is added as a suffix to している which gives the していても form.

So the translation would give : "Even if he/she is waiting/staying here patiently, we can't help it ... I guess"

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    I first thought that mo in the above case is a particle due to mistakenly thinking that the する was purposely written in its te-iru-form. And seeing. as Jisho does not have anything on mo being used as a suffix, nor have I yet been taught this in class, its understandable how I failed to recognize what you claim.
    – Toyu_Frey
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 0:48
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    It is a particle.
    – user1478
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 17:51
  • @snailboat so its not a part of the expression, - and therefore a separate entity as a Mo particle - as N Gillian claims?
    – Toyu_Frey
    Commented Mar 15, 2019 at 21:02

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