What does んだけど mean?


I’m incredibly frustrated because I can’t get a straight answer anywhere. WHAT
DOES IT MEAN? Is it contrastive, or not? In some sources, it says it is used
to simply connect clauses (The first clause being an introductory phrase for
the second) and in other sources it implies it having a contrastive purpose.
If it isn’t contrastive, then what is the difference between it and で for
connecting sentences? And if it is contrastive, HOW does
新しいゲームをやったんだけど本当に楽しい(sentence taken from a video on んだけど) translate as ‘I
started playing a new game, and it’s really fun’ instead of ‘I started playing
a new game, but it’s really fun’? If you are going to explain this, please
give a lot of detail because I have been incredibly annoyed by this and the
lack of explanations I’ve found for it.




んだけど can be divided into ん, だ, and けど.

As for んだ, it's a colloquial form of のだ. This の is difficult to grasp at first
because English has no direct equivalent.

  * [Wasabi: Explanatory のだ (んだ)](https://www.wasabi-jpn.com/japanese-grammar/explanatory-noda/) (see the "preliminary remarks" section)
  * [What is the meaning of ～んです/～のだ/etc?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5398/5010)

けど basically means "but", but it is also used to give a background or
introductory information before diving into the main topic:

  * [けど usage in ”魔石灯”がいい例だけど、”魔石”は…](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/32824/5010)
  * [Is the topic particle は sometimes interchangable with けど?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/74396/5010)

There is no contrastive meaning in your sentence. This けど is just there to
indicate that "I started playing a new game" is an introduction of your story.

