总会不时

[Pedroski]

In the same vein as 力量薄弱, I am wondering about the juxtapositioning of 总，不时

 

 

他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，总会不时地赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。

 

It seems I have 总 ‘always‘ and 不时 ‘occasionally'

 

Does the 总经理 always or occasionally laud said sweeper? Or is it 'on all occasions'??

[tommy175]

Actually, 总 in this context means "usually" instead of "always". Therefore, this sentence is saying "The general manager usually and occationally lauds the sweeper when pass by". Not in all occasions, but the frequency is relatively high.

I'm a native Chinese

Wish my explanation helpful

[Tiana]

"不时地" should be translated as "often" (The OP would be better off exploring/ learning "不时" AS ONE WORD). "总会" here adds some emphasis to "不时地", to make the likelihood more of a certainty.

[Pedroski]

Thanks! I wouldn't write 'usually and occasionally', they seem contradictory.

 

So I have 总会不时地 = often? How about 总会不时地 = 往往？

 

Question 5 was: 清洁工为什么要和小偷搏斗？ Answer C: 公司经理经常夸奖他。

 

总会不时 = 经常。

Edited March 17, 2015 at 01:37 AM by Pedroski

[tommy175]

Thank you for figuring out the contradictory part of my post.

Actually I'm also learning English as you are learning Chinese, so my language may seem awkward sometimes because of my Chinese thinking way,

Actually I was wondering whether to write "usually and occationally" when I was writing the prior post. I saw the contradictory, but not that sure, because that expression is acceptable from Chinese perspective (Just "acceptable", not a good and smooth expression).

You can say 总会不时 = 经常. However, with the character "总", you are emphasising the frequency, which is relatively high.

And 总会不时=往往？ Mmmmmmm............     Kao!! How similar they are.....    ("Kao!!" means "Jesus!!" or "Fuck", I think...)     But, they are different!  I'm sure they are different!!!   What's the difference???  Mmmmmm.......  Give me some time to think of it   O__O"…

BTW I think what a stupid question is the question 5...   Why to fight against thieves is a sweeper's job? Just because s/he's usually praised by the manager? It doesn't make any sense...   what the sweeper should do is to make the environment cleaner I suppose

[imron]

("Kao!!" means "Jesus!!" or "Fuck", I think...)

And because you're an English learner, you might like to know that neither of those words are appropriate to use in this discussion.

[tommy175]

 

And because you're an English learner, you might like to know that neither of those words are appropriate to use in this discussion.

Sorry...   and Thank you

I don't know the precise translation of "Kao", which is a modal particle to express    Er........    and be used very often by Chinese

Thank you

[Pedroski]

Don't worry, I was not offended. I can take that kind of language without being disturbed by it. Some people may however take offence!

[imron]

I'm not particularly offended by it either, but like roddy says,

 

Etiquette tip: If you're the only person in the room swearing, stop swearing. You're sounding like an angry teenager. T&C's.

[Pedroski]

An angry teenager should not sound like an angry teenager? Grow up an emotional cripple boy, just don't show how you feel!

[imron]

An angry teenager should not sound like an angry teenager?

I'm not sure how you got that from the quote.  Rather it means an adult should not sound like an angry teenager when having a polite discussion with other adults.

[Altair]

 

Does the 总经理 always or occasionally laud said sweeper? Or is it 'on all occasions'??

 

I think that 总 can often be used to translate "always," but that their core meanings are actually different.  I think of the core meaning of "always" as being "on all occasions," but we frequently use it in a less exact way.  For instance, it is normally not clear which of the following is actually a stronger statement:

 

He is always late.

 

He is almost always late.

 

The "always" in the first sentence is rarely understood as literally meaning "on every occasion"; whereas, the use of "almost" in the second one encourages a more precise reading of "always."  This means that can be worse to be almost always late than to be always late.

 

My understanding of 总 is that it doesn't mean "on every occasion," but something more like "as the general rule" or "as the norm." 

 

 

他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，总会不时地赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。

 

I would translate this as:

 

"He said that when the general manager passed by him, he would (generally) praise him now again, saying: "Where you have swept the floor is really clean."

[Lianbu Zhou]

This is a very interesting question!

 

总会不时 is a combination of 总会 and 不时

 

This the original sentence: 他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，总会不时地赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。

 

他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，总会赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。

As I delete 不时 from this sentence, this sentence also make sense but the meaning changed slightly.

 

他说，当公司总经理从他身旁经过时，(总经理)不时地赞美他“你扫的地真干净“。

As I delete 总会 from this sentence, this sentence seems a little bit strange.

 

总会：Always.

For example 太阳总会升起（The sun always rises.）

 

不时（地）：for many times.

For example 课堂上，学生们不时地向教授提出各种各样的问题 （During the lecture, students asked the professor for many times）

 

总会不时 in general means usually/always, there is no need to separate them and do grammartic analysis