What is the role of 都 in this sentence?

[Pedroski]

What is the role of 都 in this sentence? Seems I can take it out without any problems '你网上小店卖什么东西啊？，is there then a shift in meaning?

 

你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？

Should I read:

 

你卖 = you sell

你的小店卖 = your little shop sells

都卖 = all/both sell

你和你的小店都卖 = you and your little shop both sell

 

Basically, who is the seller??

 

[wumaoge]

In this sentence this is not "all/both". It's more like "even".

"What do you even sell in your little e-shop ?"

[ZhangJiang]

This is a very interesting question.

It seems that 都 used in questions is a way to hint plurality. Compare:

 

你想吃什么？What do you want to eat?

你都想吃什么？What are the things that you want to eat? (I suppose you want to eat more than one kind of food)

 

If this stands, 你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？is 你网上小店卖什么东西啊 plus "I suppose there are more than one kind".

[Divato]

To me, 都 in here indicates there's more than one type of things being sold.

（除了栗子，）你网上小店都卖些什么

So, 都卖 could be 'also sell'.

[Pedroski]

你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？

I can't think of a good way of expressing this in English, maybe 'What kinds of things do you sell in your online shop?' But this doesn't bring 都 into play.

 

In German it's easy:

 

Was verkaufst du alles （都） in deinem Internetladen? (alles = all = 都）

什么。。卖。。你。都。。。在。。你的。。网店？

 

Apart from moving things around a bit, pretty much the same as Chinese, same use of 'alles = 都‘!

 

This was another answer I got:

 

Removing 都 would not affect the meaning of the sentence too much. 都 loosely indicates that the addressee of the question, desirably, should attempt to include all categories of products in the answer, instead of only listing a portion of them.

 

Someone gave me these examples too:

 

你最近都在做些什么啊？
你都去过那些地方？
你平时都听些什么样的歌？
你都怎么想的？

[mikevwilliams]

I like to think of the 都 in the example sentence as 'altogether', so the colloqiual English equivilent would be something like "So what are selling in your shop altogether?"  You wouldn't have to list everything in your answer but just give some examples of what the shop was selling, so like the above posters said it's mostly to indicate a kind of plurality.

[Shelley]

I think

 

"So what are selling in your shop altogether?"

 

 

Sounds clumsy.

 

ZhangJiang explains it very well.
 

 

你都想吃什么？What are the things that you want to eat?

 

 

So the best translation I think based on this is "What are the things you sell in your e-shop".

[英泰inte]

haha everyone's so smart...can i try and help a little?

 

could it also be: "What all (都) do you sell in your little e-shop?"

or in chinglish 什么。。都。。你。。卖。。在你的。。小网上店

 

i think it sounds like what Pedroski says in German... it also left out the 东西.

 

does this help a little?