など(nado) — "Etc. / and so on"

• 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.

• は (wa) — Topic & Contrast Particle
• 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