AEE: Four Adverbs to Describe Inadvertent Actions

This is an All Ears English podcast for adverbs to describe inadvertent actions. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA.

And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe. Think about the last mistake you made. Did you do it accidentally or inadvertently? Today you'll learn the difference between four adverbs that describe accidents.

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Take it today at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hello, Michelle. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Aubrey.

How are you? I'm great. Excited to be recording with you today. Yes, me too. Aubrey, have you ever accidentally left something in the oven or burned something when you're cooking?

I accidentally... And I'll forget to change the setting on the toaster and it'll be like five, which burns everything. I'm like, why is that even a setting? I need to lower it to four or three.

And I don't know what it is. Sometimes my kids will turn it up if maybe they want, who knows. But yeah, so I accidentally burn toast a lot. What about you?

Yeah, you burn toast. yeah i mean i've accidentally you know left things in the oven longer than they should be either i mean like not in a unsafe way knock on wood knock on wood but just yeah then it gets burnt i mean like i'm not great at cooking meat or anything like that because i feel like i accidentally overdo it or i'm so it's a you know when you're making meat it's kind of a fine line between you know making it safe and that yeah and then it's like oh That's tricky. Or cookies, like you leave it one minute too long and suddenly they're crispy and overdone.

It's like a magic, that fine line between overcooked and raw. Well, we got a great question about this word accidentally. It was on YouTube. Michelle, do you want to read the question for us?

Sure. So this is from Saddam Mohamed U1G. Thank you so much for your question. And Saddam Mohamed says, this is really awesome. I loved this episode. You perfectly expounded on the nuances between intentionally, on purpose, and deliberately –

Could you please reflect on the opposite meanings of these words, like inadvertently, unwittingly, accidentally, and involuntarily? Could you also explain how to use the word low-key as a noun and a verb or adjective? I hear this word a lot used in different contexts. Thank you so much, Michelle, Lindsay, and Aubrey, for your colossal efforts.

Thank you so much for your question. Thank you for listening. Yes, and great vocabulary in this question. Very impressive. And yeah, this is interesting.

We recorded an episode not long ago actually about low-key. So stay to the end for details if you missed that one because that was a great episode. We do use low-key a few different ways. And then also the episode Saddam was referring to with words like inadvertently was published not long ago, Saturday, April 18th.

So you could scroll up to see that one, how to intentionally vary your vocabulary. But I'm excited he asked about these really interesting adjectives, inadvertently, unwittingly. So we're excited to dive into these today. Yeah.

Yeah. And just to clarify, sorry, that it wasn't inadvertently on the episode. It was probably intentionally. Right. So, but yeah, we are going to talk about inadvertently today for sure.

So great. So check those out. And guys, make sure that you hit follow wherever you're listening to the All Ears English podcast or hit subscribe. Maybe you're watching us on YouTube.

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Intentionally, on purpose, deliberately, then you might have missed that episode. Be sure to hit follow so you never miss one of our amazing episodes.

That's right. All right, let's get into it. So the first one is accidentally. And that's something that happens by chance, right? Not intentionally, not planned.

I would say it's the most common one. It's kind of neutral sounding. And another thing is it's not placing any blame on on anyone or anything. It was just an accident, right?

So an error or it could be for an unexpected situation. The situation was out of your control, right? If it happened on accident or accidentally. And you'll notice we're pronouncing it two different ways.

Sometimes we'll say it with all five syllables, accidentally. And then often when we're using it in regular conversation, we drop a syllable. This happens a lot. just for quicker speech.

So for example, I accidentally sent the message to the wrong group chat. You'll notice there I'm dropping one of those final syllables. Mm-hmm. Or she accidentally broke the glass while she was doing dishes.

Oh, that's no fun. That's happened to the best of us. I'll accidentally sometimes hit a dish against the counter, which is marble, and that'll chip or break a dish. So I really try not to do that.

It's always such a bummer when it happens. Yeah. Yes, for sure. Or I accidentally deleted the file, but I was able to recover it. Well, that's a relief.

We've all been there where we're like, quick hit undo when you accidentally delete something. Hopefully you can figure out fixing those accidents. Yeah. Yes.

And not have to redo all your work. So yeah, accidentally, accidentally or accidentally is definitely very common. You accidentally step on someone's toe. Yeah.

Whatever it is. But very, very common one. And then the next one is involuntarily. And this is something you do without control over your body or choices.

Right. Right. And would you say this one is as common as accidentally or? This is definitely less common, right? Accidents happen constantly all day, every day.

And involuntary action is more rare. It's more specific, right? This is more technical or formal. It could be because of some kind of medical issue. It can also be more about like habits, like a physical or biological something.

If you're involuntarily biting your fingernails, for example, you're doing it absentmindedly. Yeah, a lot of us do that. That's me. That's definitely me.

So yeah, this one is definitely a very good one. So for example, I inadvertently left my camera on during the meeting. Mm-hmm. Or oh, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, I went all the way down.

I'm so sorry. Okay, I see I accidentally scrolled down. And I'll give one is he involuntarily flinched when he heard the loud noise. And this is often for emotional responses, right?

If you're crying or laughing or sneezing, all of that, if you don't intend it, we wouldn't say we're doing it accidentally. We'd say we're doing it involuntarily. It's like a physical reaction that we can't control.

Right. Or she involuntarily started crying during the speech. Right. Or my hand trembles involuntarily when I'm stressed. This happens to me if I'm giving a speech in public or I'm really stressed out, my hands will shake a little bit.

I have to sort of hide my hands so people can't see them shaking. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, I was in like a class where you had to give a speech and we had to demonstrate how to do something. And I was demonstrating how to play chess, like the cute little nerd I was.

And my hands were shaking so much that I was tipping over the chess pieces. It was so embarrassing. I was in like seventh or eighth grade, the height of adolescent embarrassment. It was terrible.

Poor little Aubrey. I'm so right. Yeah. Have you ever felt exhausted after speaking English? Not because the conversation was difficult, but because your brain was working overtime to translate, checking grammar, searching for vocabulary.

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Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. All right, let's dive in with inadvertently, Michelle. What does this one mean?

So this is something done without realizing it, often because you didn't notice or pay attention. And this one is slightly more formal sounding than certainly accidentally. I would probably say you would write it more than use it in conversation. So it's used in professional or written English.

And it can mean lack of awareness, not just a random accident. Don't you think, Aubrey? Right. We use it more for like work mistakes or miscommunication, where it is sort of an accident, but it was more like you probably could blame someone.

They either weren't paying attention or hadn't done the proper preparation, something like that for an inadvertent mistake. Yes, exactly. So it's about unintended consequences. So here's an example.

I inadvertently left my camera on during the meeting. Right. Or the company inadvertently released the product early. Or this can happen a lot with offending someone.

She inadvertently offended him with her comment. So that, yeah, I think there's a lot of the use of this word with offending someone. Oh, I didn't mean to do that. I inadvertently offended someone.

That's never fun. This one I think you'll notice is pretty interchangeable with accidentally. We really could use accidentally for these. I accidentally left my camera on.

The company accidentally released the product early. But sometimes we'll use inadvertently more when someone is to blame, right? So if I say, you know, I inadvertently left the water running and the house flooded. To say accidentally there, someone's to blame.

Like I'm to blame. I made a mistake, right? So I could say inadvertently, but I might not say accidentally. I might, but to say accidentally is implying that I feel like I'm not at fault.

It's interesting. It's funny. This is making me now think of my kids because my daughter just – she's – My son just got like a new fan for summer camp and she took it and right away she like was kind of like messing around and is running away with it and, you know, not in a great mood and she broke it.

And then it's, you know, it was an accident. It was an accident. And sometimes you're like, okay, it was an accident. Sometimes you're like, that was not an accident.

So they had an argument about that. That's always interesting when it's like, but if you weren't running or if you weren't throwing it, that wouldn't have happened. So was it an accident? Yeah.

Sometimes there's fault, right? But it's interesting because we'll still often use accidentally. Okay, she accidentally broke it because that wasn't intended. But yeah, you can see why inadvertently is used more for in like a business context when there are mistakes that have consequences that weren't really an accident.

It was more about someone not paying attention or not doing something they should have that this unintended consequence happened. Right. Right. And I don't think I would ever use like inadvertently about like about children.

You know what I mean? I just like to like this is more it's a more professional sounding word. Like I don't think I would say, oh, she inadvertently broke his fan about her. You know what I mean?

No, exactly. Right. It's not a really a word we use to describe children who really can't be like they don't have enough life understanding to really be blamed. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Interesting. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Let's do the last one. Unwittingly, right? This is doing something without knowing the full situation or consequences.

And this is quite rare. It's an impressive word. If you're studying for IELTS, this is a band nine word, but we don't use it a ton in everyday conversation. No.

Yeah, it can be about hidden information, really. And it does sound more literary or formal, but also situations about misunderstanding or lack of awareness. So where might you see it, Aubrey?

Definitely in novels, literature, also news articles, formal descriptions. Often when we see an article, a headline, someone would use this intentionally to add import to a decision or to a mistake.

Yeah, exactly. So here are some examples. He unwittingly revealed the secret during the interview. Yeah, you can imagine that during either a biography, right?

Or, you know, something where you're trying to make it sound more important, right? He unwittingly revealed the secret. You could just say accidentally, right? Yeah.

Or they unwittingly walked into a restricted area. Uh-huh. Or she unwittingly became part of the experiment. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. So this is interesting how for all of these in a regular conversation, you would just say accidentally, but we will sometimes hear or see unwittingly if for some reason we're trying to make our speech sound a little more formal or polished.

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I don't think I ever say this, but I would read it. Yeah. If someone were to say this in a conversation, it's interesting. Every now and then you'll have a friend who just has this amazing vocabulary and you're like, that's just them.

It's their style to use these impressive words. And maybe they would say unwittingly and you're like, oh, yeah, no, that's just them. But the average person, it would almost seem condescending for them to use a word like this in a regular conversation.

Yeah, exactly. Well, let's do a role play. So you and I are friends here. And we're secretly planning a surprise party for our friend Jenna. I'll start us out.

Is everything set for Jenna's surprise party this Saturday? Yes. All the invites are sent and we ordered the food. Just please don't accidentally mention anything to Jenna.

I know what happened before when you got the group chats mixed up. I think I may have just inadvertently made that exact same mistake. oh no check your phone phew i didn't thank god i think i was involuntarily holding my breath as you checked same imagine if i unwittingly ruined another surprise party i'd be so embarrassed all right yeah so this is perfect let's go through this to show how you really gotta get it together i know right that's crazy

Okay. So you said, yes, all the invites are sent. We ordered the food. Just please don't accidentally mention anything to Jenna. So here you're using accidentally.

You're recognizing it wouldn't be intentional. You know, I know that it's a surprise party, but you're like, don't accidentally mention it in passing.

Mm hmm. And then you said, Oh, I think I may have just inadvertently made that exact same mistake. Right? So I could say that sometimes you need these other options, because you already said accidentally.

So now I'm using a different word, right? And inadvertently works here. I did it was not on purpose. But it wasn't really an accident. It really is my fault.

Like I should have known maybe right so inadvertently works here. But it is a little formal for just like this casual conversation. It is very formal. I mean, honestly, like, I would probably just not even say anything, right?

Like, I would say I may have just made that exact same mistake because a mistake is already saying that it was, you know, an accident. Yeah. Sometimes with these role plays, we're just trying to show you how they're used in a sentence. But for this conversation about surprise parties, we probably wouldn't use these others that are a little more formal.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Then you said, I think I was involuntarily holding my breath as you checked. So yeah, this is like not in your physical control, right?

Something you're holding your breath without even realizing it. That'd be perfect for involuntarily. And then you said, same, imagine if I unwittingly ruined another surprise party, I'd be so embarrassed. So again, we talked about unwittingly.

So we're giving you an example here, but I doubt that she would actually say it in this context. Imagine if I ruined another surprise party, right? So yes, we're wanting to show how they're used. But yeah, I think it is important to note that accidentally is really the only one to use in casual conversations, maybe involuntarily, if you're talking about something that was out of your physical control.

But these other two really are too formal for a very casual conversation. Exactly. All right. So where do we go from here, Aubrey? Well, we want to make sure you don't miss that episode we referred to about low-key.

That was 2187. Learn this low-key amazing English slang. The best way to find an older episode like that is the app. The All Ears English app, you can search that episode number 2187 and it'll come up on the app.

So yeah, use the app to find that one if you are curious how we use low-key in English. Yes, exactly. All right, Aubrey, anything we want to say before we head off the mic today? Yeah, this is, I mean, accidents happen to everyone.

This word, especially accidentally, comes up all the time. So I'm excited you now have all these great words to be able to talk about it. So that's a great way to connect what you've done accidentally, right? Just like the conversation we had about cooking at the top of the episode.

This comes up a lot in conversations. absolutely all right aubrey well i'm glad we talked about this together and thank you again to our listener for that question and we'll see you guys next time awesome see you next time bye

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