English Help Online's Blog

In a previous blog entry, I wrote about the difference between “anyway” and “by the way”, “speaking of” and “at any rate”, but there is another way that we use “anyway” in English. We can also use it when we want to say that someone does something despite a situation that should have prevented it. For example:

Billy is in trouble at school. His teacher told him not to throw anything in the classroom, but he did it anyway.

My friend told me that the food at Georgio’s isn’t good, but I want to go there anyway. The decor looks really interesting.

My son’s football won their game last night and everyone was so surprised. Their best players weren’t in the game, and they were playing against the best team in the league, but they won anyway!

We’re not supposed to eat at our desks in my office, but my boss lets us do it anyway.

So as you can see, we use the word “anyway” at the end of a sentence. Also, it’s important to note that this word can only be used in positive sentences; so we can say, “He did it anyway.”, but we CANNOT say, “He didn’t do it anyway.”