-(으)나: But (Formal & Literary)

-(으)나 is a "but" you will read far more often than you say. It means exactly what -지만 means — a flat contrast between two clauses — but it belongs to a formal, written, literary register: news reporting, essays, formal speeches, book prose, and set expressions. Swapping -(으)나 for -지만 changes nothing about the meaning of a sentence; it only shifts the dial from conversational to written and formal. That makes it less a new piece of grammar than a new register setting for a "but" you already own.

Because -(으)나 lives in the written world, the examples on this page are in the plain written style (한다체) — the register it naturally keeps company with. In everyday speech you would render the same ideas with -지만 and a polite ending.

Formation

The allomorphy is the familiar consonant/vowel split governed by the linking vowel -으-:

The ㄹ-stem row is the one to watch: the ㄹ drops before -나 (살다 → 사나, not ×살으나 and not ×살나), the same ㄹ-loss you see before other ㄴ-initial endings.

It behaves just like -지만

Everything -지만 can do, -(으)나 does — it simply reads as formal. It carries its own tense on the ending (했으나, 좋았으나), and the two clauses may have different subjects, which makes it ideal for the balanced, contrastive sentences of essay and news prose.

That second sentence is textbook newspaper Korean: two clauses, two different subjects (정부 / 효과), tense on the -(으)나 clause, a crisp adversative pivot. In speech you would say 발표했지만 효과는 별로 없었어요; in print, 발표했으나.

A register family, not a lone word

The clearest way to file -(으)나 is as one member of a small set of formal written connectives, each the buttoned-up counterpart of a casual one:

When a text switches into -(으)며 for "and," it will typically use -(으)나 for "but" too — they travel together as markers of the same elevated register. (For the "and" member, see -(으)며: and / while.)

The sentence-starting cousin: 그러나

The connective -(으)나 has a sentence-initial relative you already know: 그러나 ("however"), literally "it is so, but" (그러 + 나). Where -(으)나 joins two clauses inside one sentence, 그러나 stands at the head of a new sentence and pivots against the previous one. They share the same root and the same formal register — 그러나 is the written "however" that pairs with -(으)나 the way spoken 하지만/그렇지만 pairs with -지만.

If you can recognize 그러나 at the start of a sentence, you already understand the flavor of -(으)나 inside one: measured, formal, adversative.

The paired construction: -(으)나 … -(으)나 "whether X or Y"

Distinct from the contrastive "but" is a paired use, where -(으)나 attaches to two opposite predicates to mean "whether X or Y, it's all the same." Unlike the solo contrastive, this paired pattern survives comfortably in ordinary speech, especially with antonym pairs.

Fixed antonym pairs like 크나 작으나 ("big or small"), 가나 오나 ("coming or going"), 좋으나 싫으나 ("like it or not") behave almost like idioms — you will hear them even in casual conversation, where a solo contrastive -(으)나 would sound out of place. 좋으나 싫으나 in particular is a set phrase worth memorizing whole: it means "whether you like it or not," and it turns up in everyday speech despite the archaic feel of -(으)나 elsewhere.

This split personality — bookish as a solo "but," but colloquial in the paired "whether… or…" — is why -(으)나 confuses learners who meet it in a frequency list. The two uses live in different registers. English keeps them apart with entirely different words ("but" versus "whether… or…"), so there is no single English word to hang -(으)나 on; you have to read the number of -(으)나 clauses to know which meaning is in play.

Common Mistakes

1. Using -(으)나 in casual conversation. It sounds stiff and archaic across a normal chat. Downshift to -지만.

• ❌ (chatting) 좀 비싸나 예뻐요. — too formal/bookish for casual speech.

2. Forgetting the -으- after a consonant stem. Consonant-final stems take -으나, not bare -나.

• ❌ 작나 크나 상관없다. — wrong: 작다 has a batchim → 작으나.

3. Keeping the ㄹ on a ㄹ-stem. Before -나 the ㄹ drops: 살다 → 사나, never ×살으나 or ×살나.

• ❌ 서울에 살으나 부산에 살으나 똑같다. — wrong: ㄹ drops → 사나.

4. Reading a single -(으)나 as "whether." One -(으)나 is contrastive "but"; the "whether X or Y" reading needs two -(으)나 clauses.

• Misread: 값은 비싸나 … as "whether it's expensive …" — no. Solo -(으)나 means "the price is high, but …". Only 비싸나 싸나 (two clauses) means "whether expensive or cheap."

Key Takeaways

• -(으)나 = the formal, written "but," semantically identical to -지만 but shifted into news, essay, and speech register. In conversation, use -지만.
• Formation: -으나 after a consonant (작으나), -나 after a vowel (크나); on a ㄹ stem the ㄹ drops (살다 → 사나).
• Like -지만, it carries its own tense (했으나) and allows different subjects across the two clauses.
• It belongs to a register family with -(으)며 (formal "and") and -(으)므로 (formal "because").
• Paired -(으)나 … -(으)나 is a separate construction meaning "whether X or Y" (크나 작으나, 좋으나 싫으나) — and this one lives happily in everyday speech.