These two words, accidentally or inadvertently, are really similar, so I completely understand if you get confused by them. After explaining the differences between so many words, I can tell when learners will have trouble understanding nuances. Most likely these words are translated into the same word into your native language. In English there is the slightest difference of the new ones between these two.
“Accidentally” is about doing an action that you did not want to do.
I fell down accidentally when I was walking up the stairs.
= I didn’t try to, but I made a mistake and fell.
I hope you can forgive me for accidentally breaking your computer.
= I’m really sorry for breaking it. I wasn’t trying to do that at all.
“Inadvertently” is about having an unintended consequence or unplanned result.
When I got up from the table, I inadvertently knocked over my plate.
= I wanted to stand up, but standing up caused the plate to fall. I didn’t know that standing up would have this result.
By punishing only one student, the teacher inadvertently made all the kids misbehave more.
= The teacher tried to make all the kids behave, but her punishing only one kid had the opposite effect because the students saw several bad kids receive no punishment.
In summary:
- Accidentally > unintended action
- Inadvertently > intended action, unintended consequence
The king accidentally started a war.
= The king did not mean to start a war. Maybe he said something that was offensive to another king, but he didn’t know it was offensive.
The king inadvertently started a war.
= The king did some actions that caused a reaction that started a war. Maybe he chose to put soldiers on the border with the neighboring kingdom.
In many situations, these are interchangeable, but there a lot of situations where one is better than others. Breaking things is usually accidental. Bad results of government plans are usually inadvertent.
Go! Make mistakes and explain why you did it accidentally or inadvertently in English! My YouTube channel has some good tips and tricks so that you don’t accidentally say the wrong thing in English. Happy language learning!
