Essential Conjunctions: But (が)

We form a “but” in Japanese by appending the が particle to the end of the clause.

Grammatically speaking, が can also be used with standard form of the verbs but you only ever see this in formal writing (e.g. newspapers). The below was an actual headline from Newsweek.

In conversation the particle けど is typically used instead.

Note: あまり is used with the negative to mean “not so much” or “not too often” etc.

Note that the topic particle is used in the first clause in the last example. You may think we need to use が because we are connecting the noun (clothing) with the adjective “cheap” but then the topic of the sentence would be ambiguous (and would have readers wondering, “The quality of what is good?”

Note: めった is used with the negative to express that you don’t do something very often. It has more emphasis than あまり.

けど can also be used in polite conversation, but you would not see it in written text (unless on maybe someone’s personal blog).

In fact there are three other variations of けど: けれど, けども, and けれども. The nuance is broadly the same for all four and grammatical usage is identical. けど is by far the most commonly used.