Demo vs. Kedo

[HeyItsBryan]

I'm having some trouble distinguishing between these. Does kedo mean more like, "although"?

[jemstone]

i'm not entirely sure about the difference coz both do mean "but". but i suspect you are correct.

my interpretation for demo でも and kedo けど is something like, けど is used between two statements, kindda like "i like flowers けど i don't like hibiscus" whereas でも is used at the start of the statement, like the one i used above "でも i suspect you are correct."

need some confirmation from the experts that lurk around here.

[strugglebunny]

I was always under the impression both were interchangeable...

[Shaydwyrm]

jemstone, as far as I know you are correct. けど　also sometimes comes at the end of a sentence, but when this occurs it implies that there is more to say that has been omitted/elided.

Another interesting point is that でも can be viewed as a form of the grammatical construction -ても, meaning roughly "even if". So でも can also be used in the middle of a sentence in that usage - for example,

犬が嫌い。小さな犬でも嫌い。
いぬがきらい。ちいさないぬでもきらい。
I hate dogs. Even if they're small dogs, I hate them.

We are moving into my own speculation now, but I think でも　is probably a contraction of それでも　or some similar phrase, meaning "even if that is the case".

In short, the fundamental difference between けど　and でも　is that でも　is a contracted grammatical construction, whereas けど　is a proper word on its own.

[jemstone]

so for example, if my friend and i were looking at some selection of sushi, and my friend asks me if i like california maki,

i could say something like "すしが　だいすき　ですけど..." to imply that i generally like sushi but not california maki?

[Shaydwyrm]

Exactly! In fact, as it happens, I heard one of my Japanese friends say basically that exact sentence just the other day.

[jemstone]

ahh... nice to know the flexibility of the japanese language. =)

[Jason]

We are moving into my own speculation now, but I think でも　is probably a contraction of それでも　or some similar phrase, meaning "even if that is the case".

No. It comes from the te-form of a verb/adjective + も construct.

[verb/adj in te-form]+も = "even if [verb/adj]"

で is the te-form of the copula, so that's where でも comes from. The following means the same thing as your example sentence, just using the ても construct with the adjective rather than でも:

犬が嫌いだ。小さくても嫌いだ。

それでも is just an expression that uses the ても construct. でも is not short for それでも. Their meanings aren't quite the same either. でも when used by itself is more of a straightforward "but, however" and it doesn't really have the same "even though" nuance to it that the 〜ても construct does. For this reason, I like to consider でも a separate construct on it's own for convenience. それでも has the nuance of "even if that's true, nevertheless."

In short, the fundamental difference between けど　and でも　is that でも　is a contracted grammatical construction, whereas けど　is a proper word on its own.

In addition to the でも part, the けど part isn't quite right either. けど is a contraction of けれども.

For all intents and purposes, でも, けれども/けれど/けど, しかし, and が are mean a simple and straightforward "but, however." The difference is in how they're used. でも and しかし can only be used at the beginning of a sentence as a kind of segue into the sentence. けれども/けれど/けど and が can both be used at the beginning as a segue and at the end of the first sentence to connect 2 sentences together. When they come at the beginning sometimes the copula gets added to them (だが, だけど, ですが, ですけど). They can also be used at the end of a sentence to omit info and/or soften the sentence. You can't do that with でも and しかし. I get the sense that でも and しかし have a stronger sense of opposition, but that could just be me.