The many words for usual-ly

[Mijin]

A group of words which I often have trouble with is all the words meaning usual / typical: 通常，平常，经常 and 平时 have basically interchangeable translations in English, yet when I use them in Chinese sentences I'm frequently corrected "You can't use pingchang here, you mean tongchang" (and of course the people correcting me don't know what the rule actually is).

 

There's also 正常 but that one I am a bit more comfortable with: that it means "normal" and so 不正常 for example would have negative connotation.

[Messidor]

But they are not that "interchangeable" in Mandarin.
经常 means "for many times and usually frequently".
常常 means "many times but not necessarily frequently".
They can be used interchangeably when there's no indication of frequency.
They are different in that 经常 can be negated with 不, eg. 我不经常去那家店, while 常常 cannot. An acceptable phrase/word for the latter is 不常.
经常 is somewhat more colloquial.

平时 means "at a usual time, in most cases", it entails that something happened more than once but not necessarily for many times. It's an adv., adj and (less frequently) a noun. 平常 has exactly the same meaning, and it's an adv. and adj. but never a noun.
eg. 他平时都睡得很早。他平常都睡得很早。在平时的工作做中表现很好。在平常的工作中表现很好。你在平时会去吃日料吗？*你在平常会去吃日料吗？
平时 and 平常 may be interchangeable in many cases but the former is more common.

ps: 平常 has another totally different sense, ie. "ordinary, not speacial".

[Mijin]

Ah, excellent help, thank you. 

 

For the "interchangeable" thing, I realized that, that's what I meant in the question. There's nothing more frustrating than being told "You used X, you should have used Y" and then the English translation for X and Y in my dictionary is exactly the same (and example sentences look the same too). Frustrating because until I have some understanding of what the distinction is, I'm doomed to repeat the error.

 

Although one thing I just noticed: although 通常 and 平常 are translated into the same words in English, only the former can be used as an adverb. So I'll bet at least some of the time my mistake is for example: "他平常一上班就出去买咖啡" 

[Messidor]

well, translating Chinese adverbs into English is … frustrating too. ?

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通常 and 平常 are both adv. (and adj.). I've listed a few examples of 平常 in my last reply.

Their denotations are almost the same but their connotations differ.

When people use 平常 in a sentence (eg. 平常他一上班就出去买咖啡), there's a strong indication that something is happening / will happen differently this time (eg. he didn't/won't buy coffee this time). But when 通常 is used, there's no such indication (eg. 通常他一上班就出去买咖啡, and this time he did/will do it without exception).

 

ps: of course you can use 通常 with a following sentence saying that "he didn't buy coffee today", but that won't give 通常 a connotation that 平常 has. The exception was directly and solely given by the following sentence --- if the following sentence is removed, we can no longer infer from the original sentence with 通常 that there'll be an exception today.

pps: I'm a mainlander so I cannot assure u that these words are used in the same way in Taiwan or in other Mandarin communities in other countries. You may want to consult Taiwanese for more info.

[Mijin]

I forgot also 普遍 ?

 

I'm getting it now though. Props to you for figuring it out when even some Chinese teachers couldn't tell me what the difference is and why X cannot be used here and Y must be used.

[道艺]

What about 一般?

[amytheorangutan]

1 hour ago, 道艺黄帝 said:

一般

I think that means in general but can also be used to compare 2 things that have similar quality.