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I came across the sentence:
Я даже и заме́длил до 85% и то не разобра́л текст.
...and wondered if the и is optional here, or if there are cases where the combination даже и has a special meaning. In my understanding, both дажe and и basically share the meaning of even.
The sentence doesn't sound correct:
The combination "даже + и" is not typical (unlike хотя и, ещё и, etc.), at least it doesn't work in this context.
Замедлил is a typical transitive verb and it needs a direct object used explicitly here (like 'scrolling', 'browsing')
Possible solutions:
Я даже замедлил скорость (прокрутки) до 85%, и то (or но так и) не разобрал текст.
Даже замедлив скорость до 85%, я (так и) не разобрал текст.
Хотя я и замедлил скорость до 85%, я так и не разобрал текст.
Я (даже) замедлил скорость до 85%, но всё равно (or но так и) не разобрал текст.
Я, хотя и замедлил скорость до 85%, так и не разобрал текст.
Я ещё и [= вдобавок к прочим усилиям] замедлил скорость (прокрутки) до 85%,
но всё равно не разобрал текст.
without the context it's not completely clear what this combination is suppose to connote, but i would guess that what's superfluous here is даже, whereas и could indicate that slowing down was another action among a few he undertook in order to hear the text
if however he only meant that he specifically had made sure to hear the text by slowing down, then that's и which is superfluous
but generally speaking this combination is an example of redundancy
я и замедлил, но/и всё равно не...; in the original sentence и то sounds somewhat awkward, it would be most appropriate without any даже and и in the preceding clause
Oct 22, 2016 at 18:33
The rule of thumb is that «и» adds one thought to another, because these thoughts are just related and need to be thought together. In the basic case, the earlier thought is expressed as a clause, and the new thought is expressed as a clause, too, so we have something in the form «Ваня сделал то, и Таня сделала это»; that is the case that corresponds to the English “and”. But actually the earlier thought can be anything, and that thought is often just implied, not expressed.
In that role, the word can be used in a lot of very many places (before verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs…), that case you show is nothing special in this regard. In the case we have here, the additional thought is expressed just by a verb, not by a clause: there was slowing down, too. An example for a noun: «Это и Таня сделала». Here, the additional thought is that some statement refers to Tanya, too. The earlier thought was that someone else did that.
My immediate interpretation was: “I even slowed it down to 85% like you told me – that didn't help”. Here, the “earlier thought” is “you told me to slow it down to 85%”. This interpretation doesn't have to be true, because the context, well, is lacking… But I think I explained the mechanics anyway. Look for related thoughts in the situation.
