など (nado) — "Etc. / and so on"
Works like "etc." or "and so forth", marking the listed nouns as just a few examples pulled from a larger set. Can also downplay/dismiss a noun.
Structure
[Examples] + など
Examples
スポーツが好きです。テニスや野球など。
Supootsu ga suki desu. Tenisu ya yakyuu nado.
I like sports — things like tennis, baseball, and so on.
A や-list is naturally closed with など。
お化けなど信じない。
Obake nado shinjinai.
I don't believe in things like ghosts.
など dismisses a whole category ("ghosts and the like").
スーパーで野菜やくだものなどを買いました。
Suupaa de yasai ya kudamono nado o kaimashita.
At the supermarket I bought vegetables, fruit, and so on.
など closes the や-list — the shopping included more than these two things.
• Core Usage: Very often teams up with や as the closing bracket of an open list (〜や〜など). • Hidden Dismissal: Attached to a single noun with no prior list, it belittles — 私など… ("Someone as lowly as me…").
Commonly confused with
The JLPT rarely asks whether you recognise a pattern — it asks which of several similar patterns fits. These are the ones など is tested against.
vs とか
とか is the casual, more conversational equivalent of や〜など (テニスとか野球とか). など sounds a bit more formal/written.
vs なんか / なんて (casual)
なんか and なんて are colloquial variants of など; なんて especially adds a stronger dismissive or surprised tone (勉強なんてしたくない).
More particles
- が (ga) — Subject Marker & Exhaustive Listing
- を (o) — Direct Object & Traversal
- に (ni) — Target, Time, and Existence Location
- で (de) — Context of Action (Location, Means, Condition)
- と (to) — And (Exhaustive), With, and Quotation
- か (ka) — Question, Or, and Uncertain Identity
- の (no) — Possession, Modification, & Nominalization
- も (mo) — Also, Too, Both/And, Emphasized Quantity
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