hello! im very new to learning japanese, im learning a couple of basic particles right now, im researching about the ya particle, and im seeing a lot of articles about nado and its used basically the same. i assumed it was more formal or something like that, i looked it up a bunch of times but i cant find an actual answer. is there any difference? im confused.
thanks!
4 comments
There’s not a big difference in my opinion. や sounds more flexible, など is more like “and such…”
Usually when you’re listing multiple things you might say something like AやBやC but using multiple など sounds cumbersome so AなどBなどC is weird. In those situations people will usually write Aとか、B、Cなど (sometimes even Aや、B、Cなど) where you “open” with とか, then list everything else in-between with just a comma, and then finish with the など.
They’re often used together. や is used to raise examples in a non exhaustive list and the sentence usually ends with など。
[https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11119271561](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11119271561)
や is classified as 格助詞 like”が・を・に・へ・と・より・から・で・や・の” to explain the relationship between 体言(usually noun) it follows and other componet of this sentence.
など is classified as 副助詞 like”さえ、ばかり、ぐらい、だけ、ほど”, it adds new meaning to word.
The fastest way is to look up example sentences and get used to them rather than learning them.
「や」
赤や黒や青が混ざり合っている
海や山などに行く
甘いのや辛いのがある
Note that “や” itself has many particle usages with different meanings.
「等」（など） ; close to “etc.”
英・仏・独等のEU諸国
赤や黄等の落ち葉
寒くなったのでこたつを出し等する