Finally vs Eventually vs Ultimately

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I’m going to talk about the differences between “finally,” “eventually,” and “ultimately.” These three words share a lot of commonalities, so I’m going to break down some of the nuances that we see in these words and give you some situations in which its appropriate to use them.

Let’s get started!

Okay.

First, I want to look at the word “finally.”

So, in this lesson, I’m going to focus on two ways that we use this word.

The first way is to mean after a long time, at the end of a time period. So, a good hint, a good way to kind of remember this use is to remember that inside the word “finally,” we have the word “final,” which means the last of (something) or the end of (something). So, this can be kind of a good way to help you remember this use of the word.

Let’s look at some examples of this.

First - “We waited at the station all day. The train finally arrived, but it was 6 hours late.”

So let’s read the last sentence again - “The train finally arrived, but it was 6 hours late.”

So, this sentence uses “finally” before the verb “arrived.” This expresses that after a long time, in this case, 6 hours, something finally happened or something, in the end, happened. So the feeling here is that this thing happened at the end of a time period and generally, we use this after a long time period. In this case, 6 hours is a long time to wait at a train station, so we used the word “finally” to express that feeling.

Let’s look at the second example here.

“I finally finished the project I started last year.”

Once more - “I finally finished the project I started last year.”

So again, here, we have “finally” before the verb finished, and this is expressing the end point of something that started a long time ago. So in this case, the project the speaker started last year, so probably a long time ago, a few months ago.

So again, here, we’re expressing the end of a time period and there was a long period before that, okay? So, with this use, maybe another good kind of keyword to keep in mind is this word I have marked with a star here, “relief.” So, we tend to use this kind of finally when we’re sort of happy or we’re relieved that we don’t have to wait anymore or that this thing is done, it’s over. We don’t have to think about it.

So, you’ll feel kind of this expression coming from speakers when they use finally in this way. “The train finally arrived, but it was 6 hours late,” so we’re relieved in some way.

Or “I finally finished my project.” There’s that sense of relief that comes with this use of finally. So we use this after a long period of time to mark the end point of something.

Okay, let’s move on to the second use here. We use “finally” to refer to the last action or the last step in a series. So, we use this a lot in two situations. One, when we need to think about something and make a decision, and two, when we’re explaining steps in something, like maybe steps to use a software or steps in like a cooking recipe. So, with this in mind, let’s take a look at these examples.

First - “After considering many options, I finally decided to get my degree in economics.”

Once more - “After considering many options, I finally decided to get my degree in economics.”

Okay. So, in this situation, the speaker is talking about the focus of their studies and they use “finally decided.” So this is a very common key verb that we see with this use of finally, “finally decided (something).” So, this suggests the feeling here is that there were many different things for the speaker to consider, many different things for the speaker to choose from. And after that period, this was their decision. So, they’re expressing this kind of last step. This was my last step in this process of choosing a study focus or choosing the degree to study in university.

So we use “finally” in this way to express lots of different choices and the last decision I made like my last decision here, what to do with this thing. So we use this to talk about our decision making after a period of time.

Let’s look at the next example sentence.

“Our group couldn’t agree on a restaurant for lunch, so we finally split into 2 groups and went to separate places.”

So once more - “Our group couldn’t agree on a restaurant for lunch, so we finally split into 2 groups and went to separate places.”

Okay, so, again, this is referring to a decision-making process where one group of people, they want to decide where to go to lunch, but they couldn’t agree, so they finally, so that means in the end or kind of the last decision they made was to split, to split into two groups and go to separate places.

So again, we’re using finally before the last decision in the situation. We finally split into two groups. So, this is one way that we can use “finally” to talk about the last step or the last action in a process.

Let’s look at the last example. This one is something you might see in a cookbook or maybe on a recipe blog. It’s the last step in a recipe. Here, it’s…

“Finally, let the soup boil for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat and serve.”

So, once more - “Finally, let the soup boil for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat and serve.”

So, this “finally” is like a flag word, it’s like a hint. This is the last step. That’s what this finally at the beginning of the sentence is telling us. So, finally means this is the last thing we need to do, the last step or the last action.

So, here, it’s used at the beginning of the sentence. Typically, when you see it used in step-by-step processes, finally will be at the beginning of the sentence. So, it’s kind of a big hint for you, the last thing you need to do.

Okay. So, now that we’ve looked at “finally,” let’s compare this to “eventually,” the second word this lesson, okay.

So, “eventually” is used to mean after a period of time or at some future point. So, we’re using this word a lot to kind of refer to things that may happen in the future, so after a period of time or things that actually happened in the past, but after a period of time. These are kind of the typical uses of the word “eventually.”

So, let’s look at our examples.

First - “You’re really talented! I’m sure you’ll eventually get a promotion!”

Once more - “You’re really talented! I’m sure you’ll eventually get a promotion!”

Okay. So, let’s break down this use of eventually. Here, we have “you’ll eventually get a promotion.” This is a future tense expression, so “you will.” I’m sure you will eventually get a promotion. This is like saying I’m sure that at some future point, you will get a promotion. That’s what this “eventually” means.

We cannot use “finally” in this sentence to express the same idea. I’m sure you’ll finally get a promotion doesn’t really communicate that same feeling of taking time, like taking a long time to reach a certain point, okay?

So this use of “eventually” expresses that future expectation. In this case, the speaker is saying, oh, I think you’re so great, you will probably, eventually get a promotion after time in the future.”

Okay, let’s look at another example. This one is a past tense example.

“He was really sick last winter. He eventually got better, thanks to good medical care.”

Once more - “He was really sick last winter. He eventually got better, thanks to good medical care.”

Okay. So, as I said, this is a past tense sentence. He eventually got better, so for past tense verb, “got better” refers to getting better or becoming not sick, becoming healthy again. So, what’s happening here? How do we understand “eventually” in the past tense? Think of this “eventually got better” as meaning after a period of time in the past. So, “eventually” is very useful because we don’t have to say after 2 weeks of medical care or after 3 weeks of medical care. We can just say “He eventually got better.” It sounds like after a period of time in the past that we don’t have to be very specific about, he got better.

So, this is a really, really useful word, that you can use to talk about past actions, things that completed over time.

Okay, let’s look at one more example. This is an example of a sentence where you can use “eventually” and “finally.” We saw this in part 1.

“I eventually finished the project I started last year.”

So, again, this “eventually” communicates, ‘cause it’s a past tense sentence, “I eventually finished the project I started…,” this also communicates that after a period of time, in the past, I finished my project. So, again, the speaker is not saying after many weeks or after many days or whatever. They’re just saying after a period of time, I did it, I achieved my goal, in other words.

So, how do we understand the difference in feeling and in nuance between “I eventually finished the project I started last year”? I have keyword here for this word, for eventually. So, a feeling that you can think of with “eventually,” is that these things refer to- or this example situations refer to things that happened gradually, over time.

So, in this example, “You’re talented, I’m sure you’ll eventually get a promotion.” It sounds like gradually, through your hard work, you’ll get a promotion or in this second example sentence referring to medical care, gradually, he got better and better over time. And this one too, I eventually finished the project step by step. This is kind of the feeling with “eventually.” We’re talking about small steps towards a certain direction or a certain goal over time.

On the other hand, this sentence with “finally,” I finally finished the project has a sense of relief. I feel so relieved. So, yes, maybe, it’s true, the speaker did take a lot of steps to complete the project. That could be totally possible, 100%, but the feeling they express with “finally” is one of “relief.” They’re glad it’s done.

Here, we don’t have the same feeling of relief so much. Instead, the speaker wants to emphasize that kind of step by step work towards their goal.

Okay, let’s move on to talking about the last word for this lesson, which is “ultimately.” So, I wanna talk about two uses of “ultimately.”

The first is meaning in the end or referring to a finishing point.

So, let’s look at the first example sentence.

First is - “Ultimately, we decided not to buy the house.”

“Ultimately, we decided not to buy the house.”

So, this “ultimately” at the beginning of the sentence communicates in the end, this idea of in the end, and it also has the feeling of making a decision or taking this action, coming to this finishing point after doing something else. So, it sounds like maybe you look at the house, we compared many different other houses, we looked at prices, other information and so on. Ultimately, kind of includes all of that feeling.

So, in that sense, it’s a little bit similar to this word “eventually,” because eventually talks about doing something gradually, over time. With “ultimately” however, we don’t have this feeling like a lot of time passed. Rather, with ultimately, it’s like we made a decision or we chose to do an action after considering the many different things and looking at many different options, but it doesn’t mean that it happened over a long period of time, not necessarily, not always.

So, “Ultimately, we decided not to buy the house.” Maybe this was a decision we made after 1 week, so not such a long time. But it shows that you made maybe lots of considerations inside that decision.

Let’s look at the next example.

“The jobs she applied for was ultimately given to someone else.”

Okay, so we have the same feeling of maybe lots of consideration happening and then a decision with this. So, in the end, the job she applied for was given to someone else. It’s another helpful kind of keyword you can think of with “ultimately,” yes, in the end.

So, in this situation, someone applied for a job and she did not receive the job. So, ultimately, the job she applied for was given to someone else. This sounds like the people in charge of assigning the job had many different candidates to choose from, they had many different personalities and skills to consider and the final decision or in the end, the finishing point for their decision was someone else. You use “ultimately” to express this. Again, this can happen in the very short period of time. We don’t have this sense of something happening gradually, like we do with eventually.

Okay, let’s move to the last point for this lesson. The last point here is using “ultimately” to mean “fundamentally.” So, this one is kind of unique. This is unique from the others in that we don’t use this to refer to time passing. Rather, this refers to something that’s very, very basic about a situation.

So, let’s look at the examples.

First - “Ultimately, your fitness and health results depend on your efforts.”

“Ultimately, your fitness and health results depend on your efforts.”

So this use of “ultimately,” we could substitute the word “fundamentally” or “basically” here, but ultimately kind of sounds a little bit more grand, right? It sounds like this may be more important decision or something very important you need to consider.

So, when we want to use “ultimately” in this way, it’s generally talking about something that’s kind of basic, but that we want to present in kind of a more formal or polished way. So, we could say, “Your fitness and health results depend on your effort alone” or something like that, something that’s kind of basic and easy to understand. But when we want to kind of make this basic points in a more polished manner, we might use the word “ultimately” to do that.

Let’s look at one more example.

“Ultimately, this is a decision only the CEO can make.”

So again, we could substitute the word “fundamentally” or “basically” in this sentence and get the same feeling, but ultimately sounds a little bit more polished.

So, another way to understand this sentence is that this is the decision that only the CEO can make and that means that maybe our opinion doesn’t matter or we don’t get to decide in this situation. That’s what we want to communicate here.

So, this is kind of a use of “ultimately” that you may see in, for example, like political speeches or company speeches or maybe when people are talking to large groups or maybe trying to advertise something or market something. So, we don’t use this “ultimately” so much in everyday, like everyday, regular communication with our co-workers and our friends, but that is what this use of “ultimately” refers to. It’s quite different from the other expressions we talked about in this lesson.

So, to recap, we can use “ultimately” to mean in the end to refer to a finishing point after lots of consideration and to mean fundamentally. We use “eventually” to refer to something that happens after a period of time or at some future point, and the key to remember here is that it’s something that happens gradually, over time. And we talked about how to use “finally” to mean after a long time or at the end of a period to express relief that that thing is done. And we also talked about using “finally” to refer to the last action or the last step in a series.

So, we covered a lot of different points here and I think you can see how it’s very easy to confuse some of these words in the ways in which we use them, but I hope that this lesson made it a little bit clearer about how you can use these three words to talk about the passage of time as well.

Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye!

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