First, let’s look at the 3 ways ‘however‘ is tagged in the iWeb corpus:
1 HOWEVER (RR) 5768894
In the English Vocabulary Profile, as an adverb at A2:
used when you are about to say something which is surprising compared with what you have just said
Note the commas:
1 HOWEVER, IF YOU ARE 19955
2 HOWEVER, THERE IS A 15566
3 HOWEVER, IF YOU HAVE 12082
4 HOWEVER, IT IS NOT 11831
5 HOWEVER, THERE ARE SOME 11186
6 HOWEVER, THERE IS NO 9525
7 HOWEVER, IF YOU DO 9413
8 HOWEVER, THERE ARE A 9247
9 HOWEVER, IT IS IMPORTANT 8965
10 HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT 8860
2 HOWEVER (RRQV) 338069
In the EVP at C2:
CONJUNCTION: in whatever way
However you look at it, it‘s still a mess.
You can do it however you like, it really doesn’t matter.
(many of these should contain a comma)
1 HOWEVER IF YOU WANT TO 1043
2 HOWEVER IT IS IMPORTANT TO 831
3 HOWEVER I WOULD LIKE TO 765
4 HOWEVER I DON’T THINK 690
5 HOWEVER WHEN IT COMES TO 676
6 HOWEVER YOU WILL NEED TO 652
7 HOWEVER IF YOU HAVE A 547
8 HOWEVER THIS IS NOT THE 486
9 HOWEVER IT IS POSSIBLE TO 426
10 HOWEVER I DO N’T KNOW 422
3 HOWEVER (RGQV) 86333
This sense is an adverb that modifies an adjective or adverb.
In the English Vocabulary Profile at B2,
used to say that it does not make any difference how cold/difficult/slowly, etc.
For example:
That way, however deep the sleep, the sleeper still feels falling.
Here’s an EVP example that also seems like C2 fronting.
However hungry I am, I never seem to be able to finish off a whole pizza.
2 HOWEVER BIG OR SMALL, 140
4 HOWEVER SMALL IT MAY BE 91
5 HOWEVER BIG OR SMALL. 90
6 HOWEVER LARGE OR SMALL, 89
8 HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES, 85
9 HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES TO 79
10 HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES. 75
‘no matter how‘ is twice more common than ‘however‘ as RGQV in the iWeb corpus.
NO (RGQV31) MATTER (RGQV32) HOW (RGQV33) 200467
no matter how/what/when, etc. = B2 used to emphasize that something cannot be changed
John’s women can not represent John no matter how much you want them to.