总是 for always?

[889]

This happens on a lot of boards, and is indeed very frustrating, especially for those on mobile.

 

Is the quote button really necessary? It's an invitation to that sort of posting.

[somethingfunny]

I think, as abcdefg has clocked, when you use the English word "always" you actually mean "often" or "frequently" or "at set intervals".  This is why it sounds strange to say something like "我总是锻炼身体" because in English it doesn't really make sense to say "I always workout".  Because you don't.  I think you need to think first more specifically about what you're trying to say and then think about how that would be expressed in Chinese.  For example:  "I always eat Fish on a Monday" is actually "Every Monday I eat Fish" which is "我每周一吃鱼".

 

Also, I agree that 总是 generally seems to be used in a negative sense, but this shouldn't really be a surprise as also in English most occurrences of something 'always happening' are generally not good.

 

(One more also - I like the quote feature and would prefer to keep it and encourage people to use it properly)

[roddy]

There's discussion on the quote feature here - the quote button has been removed (if you can still see it post in that topic, as something odd's going on) but it's possible to quote people by selecting text - a 'quote this' pop-up appears. Any problems, post in the topic please. See any excessive quoting, offer a friendly reminder to the poster in question. Admin out [mouse drop]

[jgraham11]

9 hours ago, roddy said:

 

Jgraham, could you stop quoting entire posts, especially when they're immediately above yours? It's preferable to quote selectively, paraphrase or refer to people by name. Took me half an hour to scroll down here...

 

 

 

I thought the quote feature was necessary to let people know that you are replying to them. Otherwise I assumed they wouldn't get a notification. But whatever I won't quote anymore going forward..

And yeah, Somethingfunny, I agree with your quote. This whole thread has made me realize how poorly used "always" is in the English language by some people, myself included. I guess it doesn't carry over into mandarin which is good. I think the best alternative for it would be either saying something like 每天 or 常常，etc

[Angelina]

You can use 总是. However, you should know that 总是 can turn the tone of what you are saying into something that sounds like what roddy said. 

 

Why are you always quoting entire posts?

In this case, yes, you can use 总是 to express the meaning of always.