Help me understand 言ってみただけだよ


I found this sentence

> 言ってみただけだよ

and it is translated to

> I'm just tried to say / I'm just saying

I don't understand why and I have a feeling it's because of みた. I know that みた
is "to see" in the past, but maybe it's something else here?




〜てみた is the past tense of 〜てみる "to try to [verb]", e.g.

> 食べてみる  
>  to try to eat / to taste / to try [some food]

言ってみただけ usually means something like "just kidding". Of course, literally it
means "I only tried to say it [because I thought it might be funny]".

It's also a common way to backtrack and try to turn an inappropriate comment
into something you "only said for fun", and it's usually not clear whether or
not you were serious at the time.

