都 with and without 每个

[li3wei1]

I would appreciate help/opinions on the following:

Is the meaning of 都 different in the following two sentences?

你周末都做什么？

你每个周末都做什么？

The second one is a structure you can find in many textbooks: 每个+time phrase+都+Verb, meaning 'to do [verb] every [time phrase]'. My question is, is the first sentence above just omitting the 每个 because it's clear from the context, or is it a different structure with a different meaning?

In this headline, from http://www.bwchinese.com/article/1031952.html, what is the 都 doing?

美国学生打工都做什么？

thanks!

[skylee]

I know nothing about Chinese grammar. But I think that, strictly speaking, to qualify for an answer to Q2, the activities must be carried out every week. If you go hiking almost every weekend but did not in the last one because you had a flu, then you can't answer that you go hiking every weekend. Q1 is much more general, so even though you did not hike last week, you can answer that you go hiking during weekend.

Same for the sentence about what American students do to earn money. The article gives a general (sketchy) picture of what some/most of them do. It does not make sense to include 每個 in the sentence.

In a sense I think 都 here indicates what 通常/usually happens.

[大肚男]

also, as far as I know 都 comes after any noun when using 每个, not just time phrases, i.e. 每个+any noun+都+verb。 but I may be completely wrong in my assumption .

[navaburo]

Liwei,

It may help to think of 都 as a weaker version of 'all'. Perhaps it is used in a weaker way than 'all' in English because Chinese lacks a pleural inflection.

Your headline may be translated as: "What are American students doing to earn money?" Note that although 都 occurs in the Chinese headline and 都 roughly corresponds to 'all' in English, we do not need to include 'all' in the translation.

Now, if the headline had instead read 每个美国学生打工都做什么 , it would have been better translated as "What is each American student doing to earn money?", which souds like we are going to enumerate the jobs of a few million people! Note how the 每个...都 pattern has a stronger meaning than just 都 alone.

Jiayou,

Chris

[li3wei1]

Thanks all for your comments. The reason I'm asking is, I've got a textbook that suggests that the 都 in the first sentence refers not to 周末, but to 做什么, i.e. the translation would be something like "what all do you do on weekends?", or "exactly what do you do on weekends?". I can't find any other reference to this use of 都, however, so I'm a bit doubtful.

[imron]

That usage is very common.

[navaburo]

Another pattern where 都 may refer to the object rather than the subject is found in: 他们周末什么都(没)做 "They do everything/nothing on the weekend." Once you accept this I suppose it's only a small leap of imagination to move the 什么 after the verb. Of course, the meaning totally changes -- it's just the referant of 都 that stays the same. Thanks for pointing this out!

[一抹忧伤]

你周末都做什么？

你每个周末都做什么?

They are different I think.

The first sentence means what do you usually do at weekends.

I think 都 means usually, if we delete 都, 你周末做什么 means what are you going to do this weekend.

For the second one, it means what do you do every weekend.

Actually, I think the second sentence is not a good Chinese, or too formal.

I can understand what it means but I would say the following sentences are more common.

每周末你都做什么?

什么事情你每周末都会(去)做？

[skylee]

The views in #8 are similar to mine in #2.

[li3wei1]

So there seems to be some ambiguity here about the first sentence. #2 and #8 say 都 refers back to 周末, and means 'usually', #4 and #6 say it refers to 什么, and means 'all' (at least if I'm interpreting your responses correctly). Apart from this one textbook, I haven't found any reference to the second usage, though I can find plenty of examples of sentences using 都做什么 that don't seem to have anything before the 都 that it would refer back to.

[Tiana]

I think there is another use of 都 which has not been referred to in this thread (or may have already been referred to but in a different way than mine here): 都 can be used as a way to make the object noun plural:

1. 你昨天做什么？What did you do yesterday? (whether you did one thing or many things is not the question)

2. 你昨天都做什么？What did you do yesterday? (specifically asking for a list of things you did)

Again:

3. 你去了哪城市？Where did you go? (could be one or more cities)

4. a 你都去了哪城市？Where did you go (= tell me the cities you went to)

For the reason that this 都 is often used to indicate the plurality of the object, we often see 些 is added to make this sense more prominent:

4.b 你都去了哪些城市？

From this understanding, I think the first original sentence: 你周末都做什么？may have 2 slightly different interpretations:

5.a What do you usually do at weekends? (interested in what you normally do)

5.b What sorts of things do you do at weekends? (interested in the varitety of things you do)

Admittedly, the meanings are very similar between 5.a and 5.b

Just to make the reply complete, I'd say the 都 in the 2nd original sentence: 你每个周末都做什么？

has the meanings of 5.a, 5.b, as well as that which is associated with "每个" in "每个周末都".

[Hugh]

Just to add my two cents:

As far as I know you pretty much always have to put 都 after using 每个. I find that I get corrected if I leave out the 都 anyway, so it seems like it sounds unnatural to native speakers.

As for your second question, I think that 都 is a bit more like "altogether", "in general", "overall" etc. The person is seeking a general summarised answer on that issue, I think.