だけど usage outside of but/however

one of the example sentences for 老人 was うわ!あの老人めちゃくちゃイケメンでマッチョなんだけど which translates as “Wow! That old man is insanely handsome and macho.” but doesn’t だけど mean “but/however”? I do not see that sense of the word conveyed in this message. Is there some other usage of だけど here of which I’m unfamiliar with?

I often hear/see it used as a conversational softener of sorts - a way to not make a blunt statement.

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so something like “no” in spanish or “oder” in german when used at the end of a sentence?

Can’t speak for Spanish, but for German, yes, pretty much the same. So, there might be an implied mild surprise (e.g. in your example, “more handsome [than I thought]”, but just as often as not, there’s not even that, it just serves as padding.

“No?” at the end of a Spanish statement is like “isn’t it?” “right?” or “correct?” at the end of an English statement. So I think it’s more like ね.

Actually you could also use that Spanish convention in English more literally. Could you not?

i feel like the ね softener transfers extremely well to german, with a casual “neh?” (no?) at the end of the sentence. it even sounds very similar, and is used in spoken language, less often in written. :smiley:

as for だけど, i agree that it’s a softener: “i think this is so, but…”
it makes a statement, but leaves space for disagrement.

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