How do you say “only to find out” in Japanese

Question

I’m trying to connect two sentences with the phrase “only to find out” / “only to discover”

Answer 1

This is an uncommon usage of English infinitive (to + <verb>) known as infinitive of result (as opposed to infinitive of purpose, which is much more common). To translate "only to ～" into Japanese, you usually have to split the clause into two and join them using が, けれど, etc.

• I did it again, only to fail.
  もう一度やってみましたが、失敗しただけでした。
• I searched everywhere, only to find nothing.
  あちこち探したけれど、結局何も見つからなかった。
  あちこち探したけれど、結局何も見つからないという結果になった。
• I went to the bookstore only to discover it was closed.
  本屋に行ったのに閉まっていた。
  本屋に行ったのに閉まっていると分かっただけだった。_{(more literal but may sound redundant)}