It's definitely slang. I personally would not use it everywhere I would use "anyway". It's more of a filler, like a sort of "na ja":

"anyways, I'll be off now, see ya tomorrow"

Ugs, nicht Slang.

Exclusively slang. Not correct in writing, other than as quoted speech or to evoke a slangy style.

Vielleicht habe ich eine andere Auffassung von Slang, oder es ist ein US/UK Ding.

Nobody would care if you use anyways or anyway in any context, and Americans would likely not even notice.

ich bin grad in amerika und hab "anyways" in ner hausaufgabe geschrieben; meine lehrerin hat mir das s angestrichen. ich schaetz also mal, dass anyway die korrekte geschriebene form ist und anyways sich durch das angehaengte s einfach besser in die gesprochene sprache einfuegt (fuehlt sich zumindest fuer mich so an).

gruss,
Jannis

I think that I have commented on this in other posts. "Anyways" is not slang. It is simply a variation--perhaps regionally based in AE. Since newspapers, in particular, often seem to prefer the shortest variant, most U.S. publications would choose to use "anyway" as their preferred form. But many native speakers of AE use and write "anyways."

@Jannis: where were you in the United States? Some people are really quite ignorant of the variations in their own country. I have always found, for example, that many New Yorkers areboth relatively unaware of some of their unique usages and intolerant of non-New York regionalisms.

Suche in allen Foren: anyways

There actually seem to be two versions of this thread, plus another one, so here's a link that should find the others.

Again, I agree with Sharper that it's not slang but a regional variant. (Look up the definition in an English dictionary if you don't know exactly what 'slang' means.)

However, I disagree that it's okay to use it in the standard language, as opposed to at home with family and friends. To me, the test is whether a teacher or editor would correct it in writing. And indeed, as Jannis learned the hard way, most teachers and certainly most editors would not consider 'anyways' acceptable.

So for learners of English, it's misleading to suggest that 'anyway' and 'anyways' are interchangeable. There are other words that are interchangeable at the same diction level, like 'toward' and 'towards.' But for this word, 'anyway' is the only standard form.