Hello everyone,

and welcome to our Word of the Day. And this time, it’s actually a pretty special episode because the focus is not on a German word and its family.

Instead, we’ll take an English word and look at the various way to translate it to German.
So today we’ll learn:

How to say “anyway” in German

And not only because it is a really common and useful word, but also because looking at this can help us understand the differences between a bunch of German words learners are slightly confused about.

So are you ready to jump in?
Perfect.

Taken at face value, anyway means something along the lines of “no matter which way”. Something is the way it is, no matter the “way”. So there’s a core notion of “makes no difference”. That’s what unites all anyways. But we can also distinguish between three different use-types of anyway:

1. a “contradictory”-anyway
2. an “aligned”-anyway
3. a “conversational” anyway

Why are we making this distinction? Well, of course because German uses different translations for all three, and mixing them up would be… you guessed it… confusing.

The first type of “anyway” – contrast

So, the first type, the one we called contradictory, implies or expresses a conflict or contradiction between two things.
Here’s an example:

• “Hey man, did you know that Maria will be at the party.”
  “Ugh… I… I will go there anyway.”

The anyway does two things here. First up, it signals that Maria’s being at the party has no effect on my decision to go there. That’s pretty much in line with the core of anyway we found – Maria or no Maria, I will go.
But in addition to that, the anyway in the example ALSO implies that the fact that Maria is there would normally be a reason for me to not go. That’s what I mean by contrast or contradiction.

Synonyms for this type of anyway are regardless, nonetheless or despite that. Which is probably the best to keep in mind, because it leads us right to the German translation for this contrast-anyway. Some of you might have a hunch already. I am talking of course about …  trotzdem.

• “Maria wird bei der Party sein.”
  “Ugh… ich… ich gehe trotzdem.”
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Trotzdem is THE translation for anyway, whenever there’s a contradiction involved. Actually, let’s say it’s the only translation. Yes, theoretically there are a few alternatives to be found in the dictionary. But they’re barely ever used in normal daily conversation. Any they look like letter garbage. I mean, come on…  nichtsdestotrotz. That looks like my cat walked across the keyboard.
So yeah, whenever you can replace anyway with despite that (WITHOUT changing the meaning, of course) use trotzdem in the translation.
Here’s a couple more examples.

• “I hate your aunt and she hates me.”
  “I know. Will you please please come with me anyway?
• “Ich hasse deine Tante, und sie hasst mich.”
  “Ich weiß. Kommst du bitte bitte trotzdem mit?”
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• I’m tired but I’m watching another episode anyway.
• Ich bin müde, aber ich gucke trotzdem noch eine Folge.
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Cool.

The second type of “anyway” – Aligned

Now let’s get to the second use of anyway, the one I called it “aligned”–anyway. On first glance,  it can actually look very very similar to the first one.
Let’s take  the example with Maria and the party again but modify it slightly.

• “Hey man, do you know that Maria will be at the party?”
  “Oh really?! Well… I was gonna go there anyway.”

We haven’t really changed that much, but the whole notion of contradiction is gone now. Instead, the example sounds like the fact that Maria will be at the party might actually be a reason for me to go. But I don’t need this reason, because I am going even without her being there. I was gonna go anyway. Again, her being there has no effect on my decision, but this time my decision and her presence are “in alignment” not “in contradiction”, if that makes sense.
I know this one is much harder to grasp, so let’s look at another example, comparing the two.

1. I have a cold. But I am working at the office anyway.
2. I have a cold. But I am working at home anyway.

This time, the only difference in the examples is the location. But that changes the entire context and thus also the “vibe” of the anyway.
In the first version, me being at work is clearly some sort of contradiction to my having a cold. I shouldn’t be at work with a hefty cold.
The second example on the other hand says that the fact that I have a cold is not a problem, because I was gonna stay at home even without it.
I couldn’t think of a synonym for this aligned-anyway, but a fairly good test is to add “so it’s a match.” to the end.

1. I have a cold. But I am working at the office anyway, so that’s a match.
2. I have a cold. But I am working at home anyway, so that’s a match/not a problem.

The first sentence got pretty weird. I mean, how is having a cold and being at the office a match. But the second one works fine.
And how do we actually translate this aligned-anyway?
There are actually several options here, but the two most common and natural ones are sowieso and eh.
And yes, eh is a word! And a pretty common one, too. I’ll post a link to my article about that below :).
So here are the translations for the two examples we had:

• “Hey man, do you know that Maria will be at the party.”
  “Oh really?! Well, I was gonna go there anyway.”
• “Hey Mann, weisst du, dass Maria bei der Party sein wird?”
  “Oh echt?! Naja, ich wollte sowieso/eh hingehen.”
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

• I have a cold. But I am working at home anyway.
• Ich habe eine Erkältung. Aber ich arbeite eh/sowieso zuhause.
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• Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop

  

Cool.
We’ll see more examples in the exercise of course but before we get to that, we have to talk about the third type of anyway, the conversational-anyway one.

The third type of “anyway” – conversational

This one is actually pretty easy to spot. It is the one that we say before we say an actual sentence, to kind of switch topic or get back to it after a detour, or just move aside what has been said before.

• “I met this girl at the bar and she looks exactly like Maria…”
  “Hey, Maria will be at the party by the way.”
  “Oh really? Well, that sucks. Anyway, so I met this girl and we started to talk and…”

I think this one is pretty clear, but how do we translate it to German?
Well, there are several options and it depends a bit on context or “tone” which one to pick. Here they are, each with their closest counterpart in English

1. wie dem auch sei
   (“be that as it may” )
2. (naja…) jedenfalls
   (“in any case”… jedenfalls is actually part of the sentence, doesn’t work as a standalone)
3. aber ja (“but yeah so”… works if you’re talking and you want to get back to the topic after a slight detour)

Now, I know many of you are now like “Please tell us exactly when to use which with examples.” but I’m not gonna do that and I urge you not to get hung up on these. There are more options, people also make all kinds of combos and you just need to develop sprachgefühl for that. But German doesn’t use this conversational-anyway as English anyway, so often it’s best to just leave it out.
As far as the example goes, number two or three feel like the most natural fit to me.

• Oh echt?! Das ist nicht cool. Naja... jedenfalls habe ich diese Frau getroffen….
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• Oh echt?! Das ist nicht cool. Aber ja… ich habe diese Frau getroffen….

Oh and let’s note that jedenfalls is actually a proper part of the sentence with the verb after it. You can’t use jedenfalls as a standalone, like you could the other.
Cool.
So those were the three types or ways of using anyway and how they each translate to German.
Here they are again:

1. contradictory-anyway
   test:               can be replaced with despite that
   translation: trotzdem
2. aligned-anyway
   test:              you can add “so it’s a match” and it kind of makes sense
   translation: eh, sowieso
3. conversational-anyway
   test:               sits in front of a sentence, not really part of it
   translation: wie dem auch sei, jedenfalls, [nothing]

And now all that’s left for us is a little practice.
Usually, I’d include that here, but I haven’t prepared it yet, and since many of us have to stay put at home these days, I thought, I’ll just give you the article now, so you have something to read, and follow up with the quiz in a few days :). So stay tuned!

And that’s it for today!
This was our look at the three ways to say anyway in German.
As always, if you have any questions or thoughts or if you have a specific use of anyway that you’d like to have a translation for, just leave a comment and we’ll clear things up together.

Oh and also, what do you think of this kind of article?
Should I do more “How to translate”? If yes, please let me know which words you’d like me to talk about.

• How to translate “anyway” – The Exercise