でもOr something, Any... (with question words), No matter (who)

でも is one of many adverbial particles in Japanese. These are particles that behave like a regular 助詞(じょし) (in that they appear after the words that they are referencing), but their role is a little bit more specific. でも itself has several uses, and the use that we will examine in this grammar point is called 例示(れいじ). Basically this means 'presenting examples'.

In English, this results in a translation similar to 'even', or 'or something'. To use this structure, simply attach でも to the end of any noun, or pronoun.

When grouped with a standard noun as above, でも is just showing that the noun is an example/suggestion, and that there are other choices/possibilities available. However, when the noun is a word like 誰(だれ), どこ, 何(なん), or いつ, the translation becomes much closer to English words like 'anyone', 'anywhere', 'anything', or 'anytime'.

Fun Fact

There is debate among Japanese native speakers about whether でも should be considered its own word, or if it is actually just a combination of the particles で and も (or て and も in the case of verbs, but we will cover that later). As で and も together could be translated as 'even with (A)', it would also be correct to consider it this way.

Caution

When grouped with 何(なに), the pronunciation will almost always change to なん. This is purely to make なんでも easier to say.