Grammar
그러나
Meaning
Beginnergeureona
Opens a sentence that turns the argument around — 'however', 'but'. What follows replaces the direction the previous sentence was heading in, which is why a news paragraph puts 그러나 in front of the ruling, the revision or the figure that undoes what came before. Among the words that do this job it is the written, formal one: printed news is where it belongs, and in conversation it sounds stiff.
Form
그러나 is a conjunctive adverb, not an ending. It needs a full stop in front of it and then stands at the head of the next sentence, taking no particle and never changing shape. News writing usually runs it straight into the subject with no comma (그러나 법원은…); a comma after it is possible and reads as a deliberate pause. It cannot join two clauses inside one sentence — that job belongs to the ending -지만.
Examples
그러나 법원은 무죄를 선고했습니다.
The court, however, returned a verdict of not guilty.
Common mistakes & nuance
Do not read every sentence-initial connector as a reversal. 그런데 shifts the topic and can amount to no more than 'and by the way', and 다만 attaches a reservation while leaving the previous sentence standing; only 그러나 says the earlier direction no longer holds. Because it is an adverb, it also cannot be hung off the end of the previous clause the way -지만 attaches to a stem. In speech the same reversal is normally carried by 하지만, or casually by 근데 — 그러나 spoken aloud sounds like reading off a page.
Similar grammar
- 다만
Reversal against reservation. 그러나 cancels the direction the previous sentence set, so the sentence after it carries the point; 다만 leaves that direction intact and carves an exception out of it. A paragraph reporting an upward revision can add 다만 about one weak figure without taking the good news back — putting 그러나 there instead would say the revision itself no longer stands.
- -지만
The same reversal at a different grammatical level. -지만 is an ending and keeps both halves inside one sentence (벌금을 선고했지만 …), while 그러나 is an adverb and gives the second half a sentence of its own. News writing breaks the sentence and reaches for 그러나 when the reversing half needs its own subject, its own figures or its own attribution.