anyway
(adverb)
LISTEN
"I'm sorry, I don't know that hotel." "OK, thanks anyway!"
We can use the word anyway when we are talking about two things that don’t usually happen together. For example, people don’t usually go to the beach when the weather is bad. So if you go there when it’s raining, you can say, “It was raining, but I went to the beach anyway.” With this meaning, we usually put anyway at the end of the sentence.
- He didn’t want my help but I helped him anyway.
We can use anyway at the start of a sentence when we want to talk about something that we talked about before. We often do this when we are telling a story and want to finish it.
- Anyway, in the end I found my keys under the sofa!
We can also use anyway when we want to start talking about something new.
- Anyway, that’s enough about me. Tell me about you.
Common uses
If someone can’t help us, or we don’t need their help, we sometimes say, “Thanks anyway!” We usually do this because they tried to help, and we want to say thank you for that. For example: “I’m sorry, I don’t know where the station is.” “OK, thanks anyway!”
In pop culture
Forrest Gump is a movie about a man and his amazing life. In this video from the movie, Forrest is in the army. His friend Bubba is talking about shrimp because his family are fishermen. When Bubba starts talking, he says, “Anyway, like I was saying…” He says this because he was talking about shrimp before, and now he wants to continue talking about it. Bubba tells Forrest about all the ways you can eat shrimp. Can you hear these: barbecue it, boil it, bake it, shrimp kebab, lemon shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp salad, shrimp sandwich?
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