まだいたとはね meaning


I'm trying (to no avail) to translate this sentence: まだいたとはね.

I think it means something along the lines of here we go again, but I'm not
sure.

I don't really understand what いた means here. Is it a conjugation of 居る? (The
context was two guys walk up to the main characters after the previous two
were defeated and start to talk about their plans, then one of the main
characters says the above sentence.)

Furthermore, what does the とは mean? I suspect it is the quotative と plus the
contrastive は, but the sentence as a whole still doesn't make sense to me.




I think there is technically enough information in the comments and answers
for this to be answered, but as none of the answers has been accepted I'll
write it out a bit clearer.

As _oals_ indicated, the "とは” at the end of a sentence (possibly before a ね or
な) means "とは思わなかった", which indicates surprise about a state. Note here that は
is used after the と because it expresses something negative, which is a common
pattern with the は particle.

A similar pattern is ~なんて which can be used to express surprise about
something (i.e. こんなに難しいなんて”）

まだ means "still" when used in a positive sentence, and いた comes from 居た (a
form of 居る, which generally means a living thing exists or is present). While
this seems like the past tense, it is technically the "modal た", which you can
read more about
[here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/21347/usage-of-plain-i-
adjectives-
or-%E3%81%9F-form-%E6%82%AA%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%EF%BD%96%E6%82%AA%E3%81%84-%E8%89%AF%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%EF%BD%96%E3%81%84%E3%81%84-etc).
This usage is seen in other cases, like when you say "あった" when you find
something you were looking for.

There are many ways to translate this, and I think that those in _ironsand_ 's
answer aren't bad. However, assuming the context implies "you", one other way
to say this would be:

> I'd never have guessed you were still here.

Correction: changed description of "ta" from "past" to "modal" based on
feedback from l'électeur.

