"Zrobiłam to przypadkiem!"
Translation:I did this by accident!
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975
Duo gave me the answer 'I made this on accident' An English speaker. We woud say 'I made this by accident' or 'I made this accidently' but never 'on accident'
Another "native speaker" here from the US who can confirm that yes, the idiot millennials have made "on accident" a thing. It probably came about due to their limited vocabulary, inexperienced as they are with reading books instead of crap on social media, and their casual approach to all things grammar and spelling. They learned "on purpose" and assumed "on accident" would work equally well. Now, this ridiculously incorrect usage is widely accepted.
1749
How much time does this disabling take to propagate? Your comment is shown as "1 week ago" but today I got this as a listening exercise with the female voice and also made the "mistake" of writing zrobiłem.
Ehh, they're different. Chance implies... man, this is hard, but believe me, they are different. "By accident" means you had no intention of doing it, the unintended outcome is neither good nor bad. It might even tend towards bad. Chance implies that it was... lucky? Like, you didn't really mean to, but, thankfully, you did. Hope that helps.
I get a free paper, Anonse, from a local Polish centre, and it has many adverts offering help to people who have had accidents: "Miałeś Wypadek Drogowy? Pomożemy Ci!" The full list is "Wypadki samochodowe, pieszych i rowerzystów, taksówkarzy, w pracy, w miejscach publiczynch". And that is from just one advertiser.
I see a common root with the verb "to fall" = "padać"; an accident is something that "befalls" you, in somewhat old-fashioned English.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/przypadkiem tells me that, as well as being a noun in the Instrumental case, "przypadkiem" is also an adverb in its root form.
Well... not really. Maybe in this particular sentence it can be replaced with an adverb, but not in general.
There are multiple similar adverbs which could fit here and which have more or less exact German equivalents:
unabsichtlich - niezamierzenie (zamiar=Absicht)
ungewollt - niechcący (chcieć=wollen)
zufällig - przypadkowo (przypadek=Zufall)
unbewusst - nieświadomie (świadomość=Bewusstsein)
In my opinion, the English translation offers the best insight into the instrumental case. This case answers the question 'by means of what?' - By means of an accident, by accident.