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I'm being influenced by another language, which is why this might sound so natural to me. Still, I wonder what others would think about sentences like these.

"I realized it when we were shopping earlier, but you have really good taste in clothing."

Is the "but" in that sentence awkward?

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    But has to express some sort of contrast or negation; this would make more sense if you said "I only realized it ... but" or "I never realized before ... but".
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 23:27

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I would say but does sound awkward here. But is often used as however, to introduce a different, and often opposing, thought.

E.g.

I realized it when we were shopping earlier, but I didn't tell you then. You have really good taste in clothing.

Proper uses of but:

He stumbled but didn't fall.
I am clean but you are dirty.
I'm enjoying myself immensely, but I must leave or I'll be late for work.

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    I hope you won't say but me no buts, but I think you've got one too many "buts" in your third-to-last line. It would be very unusual to stack two consecutive contrasting "buts" in series like that, whatever the preceding context that we don't have.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 23:43
  • @FumbleFingers - Formatting problem. eliminated (with thanks.)
    – anongoodnurse
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 23:51
  • But I'll leave the comment there (it may help anyone who wants to get more familiar with how we might use the word "but" :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 23:54

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